I  pursued  her  from  tree  to  tree." 


BEFORE  ADAM 


BY 
JACK   LONDON 

AUTHOR    OF 

"THE    CALL    OF    THE    WILD,"  "THE    SEA 

WOLF,"     "  PEOPLE    OF    THE  ABYSS," 

"WHITE    FANG,"    ETC.,  ETC. 


WITH   NUMEROUS   ILLUSTRATIONS   BY 
CHARLES   LIVINGSTON   BULL 


gorfe 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN   &  CO.,   LTD. 

1907 
All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1906, 
BY  JACK  LONDON. 

COPYRIGHT,  1906,  1907, 
BY  THE  RIDGWAY  COMPANY. 

COPYRIGHT,  1907, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  February,  1907. 


KortoootJ 

J.  8.  dishing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


BEFORE   ADAM 


"  THESE  are  our  ancestors,  and  their  history  is  our  history. 
Remember  that  as  surely  as  we  one  day  swung  down  out  of 
the  trees  and  walked  upright,  just  as  surely,  on  a  far  earlier 
day,  did  we  crawl  up  out  of  the  sea  and  achieve  our  first 
adventure  on  land." 


266914 


CHAPTER  I 

PICTURES!   Pictures!    Pictures!     Often, 
before  I  learned,  did  I  wonder  whence 
came    the    multitudes   of   pictures    that 
thronged  my  dreams;    for  they  were  pictures 
the  like  of  which  I  had  never  seen  in  real  wake- 
a-day    life.     They    tormented    my    childhood, 
making  of  my  dreams  a  procession  of  nightmares 
and  a  little  later  convincing  me  that  I  was  dif 
ferent  from  my  kind,  a  creature  unnatural  and 
accursed. 

In  my  days  only  did  I  attain  any  measure  of 
happiness.  My  nights  marked  the  reign  of  fear 
—  and  such  fear !  I  make  bold  to  state  that 
no  man  of  all  the  men  who  walk  the  earth  with 
me  ever  suffer  fear  of  like  kind  and  degree.  For 
my  fear  is  the  fear  of  long  ago,  the  fear  that  was 
rampant  in  the  Younger  World,  and  in  the  youth 
of  the  Younger  World.  In  short,  the  fear  that 
reigned  supreme  in  that  period  known  as  the 
Mid-Pleistocene. 


2  :  /BElpRE  ADAM 

What  do  I  mean  ?  I  see  explanation  is 
necessary  before  I  can  tell  you  of  the  substance 
of  my  dreams.  Otherwise,  little  could  you  know 
of  the  meaning  of  the  things  I  know  so  well. 
As  I  write  this,  all  the  beings  and  happenings 
of  that  other  world  rise  up  before  me  in  vast 
phantasmagoria,  and  I  know  that  to  you  they 
would  be  rhymeless  and  reasonless. 

What  to  you  the  friendship  of  Lop-Ear,  the 
warm  lure  of  the  Swift  One,  the  lust  and  the 
atavism  of  Red-Eye  ?  A  screaming  incohe 
rence  and  /,.->  no  more.  And  a  screaming 

incoherence,     likewise, 
the  doings   of  the 
Fire  People  and 
the  Tree    Peo 
ple,  and   the  gib 
bering    councils     of 
the  horde.    For  you  know 
not  the  peace  of  the  cool 
caves  in  the  cliffs,  the  cir 
cus  of  the  drinking-places 
at    the    end   of    the   day. 
You  have  never  felt  the 


Y- 


-v 


BEFORE   ADAM  3 

bite  of  the  morning  wind  in  the  tree-tops,  nor 
is  the  taste  of  young  bark  sweet  in  your  mouth. 

It  would  be  better,  I  dare  say,  for  you  to  make 
your  approach,  as  I  made  mine,  through  my 
childhood.  As  a  boy  I  was  very  like  other  boys 
—  in  my  waking  hours.  It  was  in  my  sleep  that 
I  was  different.  From  my  earliest  recollection 
my  sleep  was  a  period  of  terror.  Rarely  were 
my  dreams  tinctured  with  happiness.  As  a  rule, 
they  were  stuffed  with  fear  —  and  with  a  fear 
so  strange  and  alien  that  it  had  no  ponderable 
quality.  No  fear  that  I  experienced  in  my 
waking  life  resembled  the  fear  that  possessed 
me  in  my  sleep.  It  was  of  a  quality  and  kind 
that  transcended  all  my  experiences. 

For  instance,  I  was  a  city  boy,  a  city  child, 
rather,  to  whom  the  country  was  an  unexplored 
domain.  Yet  I  never  dreamed  of  cities;  nor 
did  a  house  ever  occur  in  any  of  my  dreams. 
Nor,  for  that  matter,  did  any  of  my  human  kind 
ever  break  through  the  wall  of  my  sleep.  I, 
who  had  seen  trees  only  in  parks  and  illustrated 
books,  wandered  in  my  sleep  through  intermi 
nable  forests.  And  further,  these  dream  trees 


4  BEFORE   ADAM 

were  not  a  mere  blur  on  my  vision.  They  were 
sharp  and  distinct.  I  was  on  terms  of  practised 
intimacy  with  them.  I  saw  every  branch  and 
twig;  I  saw  and  knew  every  different  leaf. 

Well  do  I  remember  the  first  time  in  my  wak 
ing  life  that  I  saw  an  oak  tree.  As  I  looked  at 
the  leaves  and  branches  and  gnarls,  it  came  to 
me  with  distressing  vividness  that  I  had  seen 
that  same  kind  of  tree  many  and  countless  times 
in  my  sleep.  So  I  was  not  surprised,  still  later 
on  in  my  life,  to  recognize  instantly,  the  first 
time  I  saw  them,  trees  such  as  the  spruce,  the 
yew,  the  birch,  and  the  laurel.  I  had  seen  them 
all  before,  and  was  seeing  them  even  then,  every 
night,  in  my  sleep. 

This,  as  you  have  already  discerned,  violates 
the  first  law  of  dreaming,  namely,  that  in  one's 
dreams  one  sees  only  what  he  has  seen  in  his 
waking  life,  or  combinations  of  the  things  he  has 
seen  in  his  waking  life.  But  all  my  dreams 
violated  this  law.  In  my  dreams  I  never  saw 
anything  of  which  I  had  knowledge  in  my  wak 
ing  life.  My  dream  life  and  my  waking  life 
were  lives  apart,  with  not  one  thing  in  common 


BEFORE   ADAM  5 

save  myself.  I  was  the  connecting  link  that 
somehow  lived  both  lives. 

Early  in  my  childhood  I  learned  that  nuts 
came  from  the  grocer,  berries  from  the  fruit  man ; 
but  before  ever  that  knowledge  was  mine,  in 
my  dreams  I  picked  nuts  from  trees,  or  gathered 
them  and  ate  them  from  the  ground  underneath 
trees,  and  in  the  same  way  I  ate  berries  from 
vines  and  bushes.  This  was  beyond  any  ex 
perience  of  mine. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  first  time  I  saw  blue 
berries  served  on  the  table.  I  had  never  seen 
blueberries  before,  and  yet,  at  the  sight  of  them, 
there  leaped  up  in  my  mind  memories  of  dreams 
wherein  I  had  wandered  through  swampy  land 
eating  my  fill  of  them.  My  mother  set  before 
me  a  dish  of  the  berries.  I  filled  my  spoon, 
but  before  I  raised  it  to  my  mouth  I  knew  just 
how  they  would  taste.  Nor  was  I  disappointed. 
It  was  the  same  tang  that  I  had  tasted  a  thou 
sand  times  in  my  sleep. 

Snakes  ?  Long  before  I  had  heard  of  the 
existence  of  snakes,  I  was  tormented  by  them 
in  my  sleepo  They  lurked  for  me  in  the  forest 


BEFORE  ADAM 


glades;  leaped  up,  striking,  under  my  feet; 
squirmed  off  through  the  dry  grass  or  across 
naked  patches  of  rock;  or  pursued  me  into  the 
tree-tops,  encircling  the  trunks  with  their  great 
shining  bodies,  driving  me  higher  and  higher 
or  farther  and  farther  out  on  swaying  and 
crackling  branches,  the 
ground  a  dizzy  dis 
tance  beneath  me. 
Snakes  ! — with  their 
forked  tongues,  their 
beady  eyes  and  glit- 
their  hissing  and 
I  not  already  know 
on  that  day  of  my  first 
saw  the  snake-charmer 
They  were  old-  friendg-ofLmine,  enemies  rather, 
that  peopled  my  nights  with  fear. 

Ah,  those  endless  forests,  and  their  horror- 
haunted  gloom !  For  what  eternities  have  I 
wandered  through  them,  a  timid,  hunted  crea 
ture,  starting  at  the  least  sound,  frightened  of 
my  own  shadow,  keyed-up,  ever  alert  and  vigil 
ant,  ready  on  the  instant  to  dash  away  in  mad 


tenng    scales, 
their  rattling —  did 
them  far  too  well 
circus  when  I 
lift  them  up  ? 


BEFORE   ADAM  7 

flight  for  my  life.  For  I  was  the  prey  of  all 
manner  of  fierce  life  that  dwelt  in  the  forest, 
and  it  was  in  ecstasies  of  fear  that  I  fled  before 
the  hunting  monsters. 

When  I  was  five  years  old  I  went  to  my  first 
circus.  I  came  home  from  it  sick  —  but  not 
from  peanuts  and  pink  lemonade.  Let  me  tell 
you.  As  we  entered  the  animal  tent,  a  hoarse 
roaring  shook  the  air.  I  tore  my  hand  loose 
from  my  father's  and  dashed  wildly  back  through 
the  entrance.  I  collided  with  people,  fell  down; 
and  all  the  time  I  was  screaming  with  terror. 
My  father  caught  me  and  soothed  me.  He 
pointed  to  the  crowd  of  people,  all  careless  of 
the  roaring,  and  cheered  me  with  assurances 
of  safety. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  in  fear  and  trembling, 
and  with  much  encouragement  on  his  part,  that 
I  at  last  approached  the  lion's  cage.  Ah,  I 
knew  him  on  the  instant.  The  beast !  The 
terrible  one !  And  on  my  inner  vision  flashed 
the  memories  of  my  dreams,  —  the  midday  sun 
shining  on  tall  grass,  the  wild  bull  grazing  quietly, 
the  sudden  parting  of  the  grass  before  the  swift 


8  BEFORE   ADAM 

rush  of  the  tawny  one,  his  leap  to  the  bull's 
back,  the  crashing  and  the  bellowing,  and  the 
crunch  crunch  of  bones ;  or  again,  the  cool  quiet 
of  the  water-hole,  the  wild  horse  up  to  his  knees 
and  drinking  softly,  and  then  the  tawny  one  — 
always  the  tawny  one !  —  the  leap,  the  scream 
ing  and  the  splashing  of  the  horse,  and  the  crunch 
crunch  of  bones;  and  yet  again,  the  sombre 
twilight  and  the  sad  silence  of  the  end  of  day, 
and  then  the  great  full-throated  roar,  sudden,  like 
a  trump  of  doom,  and  swift  upon  it  the  insane 
shrieking  and  chattering  among  the  trees,  and 
I,  too,  am  trembling  with  fear  and  am  one  of  the 
many  shrieking  and  chattering  among  the  trees. 
At  the  sight  of  him,  helpless,  within  the 
bars  of  his  cage,  I  became  enraged.  I  gritted 
my  teeth  at  him,  danced  up 
and  down,  screaming 
an  incoherent 
mockery  and 
making  antic 
faces.  He  re 
sponded,  rushing 
against  the  bars  and 


BEFORE   ADAM  9 

roaring  back  at  me  his  impotent  wrath.  Ah, 
he  knew  me,  too,  and  the  sounds  I  made  were 
the  sounds  of  old  time  and  intelligible  to  him. 

My  parents  were  frightened.  "The  child  is 
ill,"  said  my  mother.  "He  is  hysterical," 
said  my  father.  I  never  told  them,  and  they 
never  knew.  Already  had  I  developed  reticence 
concerning  this  quality  of  mine,  this  semi-dis- 
association  of  personality  as  I  think  I  am  justi 
fied  in  calling  it. 

I  saw  the  snake-charmer,  and  no  more  of  the 
circus  did  I  see  that  night.  I  was  taken  home, 
nervous  and  overwrought,  sick  with  the  inva 
sion  of  my  real  life  by  that  other  life  of  my 
dreams. 

I  have  mentioned  my  reticence.  Only  once  did 
I  confide  the  strangeness  of  it  all  to  another.  He 
was  a  boy — my  chum;  and  we  were  eight  years 
old.  From  my  dreams  I  reconstructed  for  him 
pictures  of  that  vanished  world  in  which  I  do 
believe  I  once  lived.  I  told  him  of  the  terrors 
of  that  early  time,  of  Lop-Ear  and  the  pranks 
we  played,  of  the  gibbering  councils,  and  of  the 
Fire  People  and  their  squatting  places. 


io  BEFORE   ADAM 

He  laughed  at  me,  and  jeered,  and  told  me 
tales  of  ghosts  and  of  the  dead  that  walk  at 
night.  But  mostly  did  he  laugh  at  my  feeble 
fancy.  I  told  him  more,  and  he  laughed  the 
harder.  I  swore  in  all  earnestness  that  these 
things  were  so,  and  he  began  to  look  upon  me 
queerly.  Also,  he  gave  amazing  garblings  of  my 
tales  to  our  playmates,  until  all  began  to  look 
upon  me  queerly. 

It  was  a  bitter  experience,  but  I  learned  my 
lesson.  I  was  different  from  my  kind.  I  was 
abnormal  with  something  they  could  not  under 
stand,  and  the  telling  of  which  would  cause  only 
misunderstanding.  When  the  stories  of  ghosts 
and  goblins  went  around,  I  kept  quiet.  I 
smiled  grimly  to  myself.  I  thought  of  my  nights 
of  fear,  and  knew  that  mine  were  the  real  things 
—  real  as  life  itself,  not  attenuated  vapors  and 
surmised  shadows. 

For  me  no  terrors  resided  in  the  thought  of 
bugaboos  and  wicked  ogres.  The  fall  through 
leafy  branches  and  the  dizzy  heights;  the  snakes 
that  struck  at  me  as  I  dodged  and  leaped  away 
in  chattering  flight;  the  wild  dogs  that  hunted 


BEFORE  ADAM 


ii 


me    across    the    open 
spaces  to  the  tim 
ber  —  these  were 
terrors    concrete 
and  actual,   hap 
penings  and  not  im 
aginings,  things  of 
the  living  flesh  and 
of  sweat  and  blood. 
Ogres    and    bugaboos 
and   I   had   been  happy 
bed-fellows,  compared  with 
these    terrors     that    made 
their  bed  with  me  through 
out  my  childhood,  and  that  still  bed  with  me, 
now,  as  I  write  this,  full  of  years. 


CHAPTER  II 

I  HAVE  said  that  in  my  dreams  I  never  saw 
a  human  being.  Of  this  fact  I  became 
aware  very  early,  and  felt  poignantly  the 
lack  of  my  own  kind.  As  a  very  little  child, 
even,  I  had  a  feeling,  in  the  midst  of  the  horror 
of  my  dreaming,  that  if  I  could  find  but  one  man, 
only  one  human,  I  should  be  saved  from  my 
dreaming,  that  I  should  be  surrounded  no  more 
by  haunting  terrors.  This  thought  obsessed 
me  every  night  of  my  life  for  years  —  if  only  I 
could  find  that  one  human  and  be  saved ! 

I  must  iterate  that  I  had  this  thought  in  the 
midst  of  my  dreaming,  and  I  take  it  as  an  evi 
dence  of  the  merging  of  my  two  personalities, 
as  evidence  of  a  point  of  contact  between  the 
two  disassociated  parts  of  me.  My  dream 
personality  lived  in  the  long  ago,  before  ever 
man,  as  we  know  him,  came  to  be ;  and  my  other 
and  wake-a-day  personality  projected  itself,  to 


12 


BEFORE   ADAM  13 

the  extent  of  the  knowledge  of  man's  existence, 
into  the  substance  of  my  dreams. 

Perhaps  the  psychologists  of  the  book  will 
find  fault  with  my  way  of  using  the  phrase, 
"disassociation  of  personality."  I  know  their 
use  of  it,  yet  am  compelled  to  use  it  in  my  own 
way  in  default  of  a  better  phrase.  I  take  shelter 
behind  the  inadequacy  of  the  English  language. 
And  now  to  the  explanation  of  my  use,  or  misuse, 
of  the  phrase. 

It  was  not  till  I  was  a  young  man,  at  college, 
that  I  got  any  clew  to  the  significance  of  my 
dreams,  and  to  the  cause  of  them.  Up  to  that 
time  they  had  been  meaningless  and  without 
apparent  causation.  But  at  college  I  discovered 
evolution  and  psychology,  and  learned  the  ex 
planation  of  various  strange  mental  states  and 
experiences.  For  instance,  there  was  the  falling- 
through-space  dream  —  the  commonest  dream 
experience,  one  practically  known,  by  first-hand 
experience,  to  all  men. 

This,  my  professor  told  me,  was  a  racial  mem 
ory.  It  dated  back  to  our  remote  ancestors 
who  lived  in  trees.  With  them,  being  tree- 


14  BEFORE   ADAM 

dwellers,  the  liability  of  falling  was  an  ever- 
present  menace.  Many  lost  their  lives  that  way; 
all  of  them  experienced  terrible  falls,  savingthem- 
selves  by  clutching  branches  as  they  fell  toward 
the  ground. 

i     Now  a  terrible  fall,  averted  in  such  fashion, 
|  was  productive  of  shock.     Such  shock  was  pro- 
/  ductive  of  molecular  changes   in  the  cerebral 
1    cells.     These    molecular    changes    were    trans 
mitted  to  the  cerebral  cells  of  progeny,  became, 
in   short,    racial   memories.     Thus,   when   you 
and  I,  asleep  or  dozing  off  to  sleep,  fall  through 
space  and  awake  to  sickening  consciousness  just 
before  we  strike,  we  are  merely  remembering 
what  happened  to  our  arboreal  ancestors,  and 
which  has  been  stamped   by  cerebral   changes 
into  the  heredity  of  the  race. 

There  is  nothing  strange  in  this,  any  more  than 
there  is  anything  strange  in  an  instinct.  An 
instinct  is  merely  a  habit  that  is  stamped  into 
the  stuff  of  our  heredity,  that  is  all.  It  will  be 
noted,  in  passing,  that  in  this  falling  dream  which 
is  so  familiar  to  you  and  me  and  all  of  us,  we 
never  strike  bottom.  To  strike  bottom  would 


BEFORE   ADAM  15 

be  destruction.  Those  of  our  arboreal  ancestors 
who  struck  bottom  died  forthwith.  True,  the 
shock  of  their  fall  was  communicated  to  the  cere 
bral  cells,  but  they  died  immediately,  before  they 
could  have  progeny.  You  and  I  are  descended 
from  those  that  did  not  strike  bottom;  that  is 
why  you  and  I,  in  our  dreams,  never  strike 
bottom. 

And  now  we  come  to  disassociation  of  per 
sonality.  We  never  have  this  sense  of  falling 
when  we  are  wide  awake.  Our  wake-a-day 
personality  has  no  experience  of  it.  Then  — 
and  here  the  argument  is  irresistible  —  it  must 
be  another  and  distinct  personality  that  falls 
when  we  are  asleep,  and  that  has  had  experience 
of  such  falling  —  that  has,  in  short,  a  memory 
of  past-day  race  experiences,  just  as  ourwake-a- 
day  personality  has  a  memory  of  our  wake-a- 
day  experiences. 

It  was  at  this  stage  in  my  reasoning  that  I  be 
gan  to  see  the  light.  And  quickly  the  light  burst 
upon  me  with  dazzling  brightness,  illuminating 
and  explaining  all  that  had  been  weird  and  un 
canny  and  unnaturally  impossible  in  my  dream 


i6 


BEFORE   ADAM 


experiences.  In  my  sleep  it  was  not  my  wake-a- 
day  personality  that  took  charge  of  me;  it  was 
another  and  distinct  personality,  possessing  a  new 
and  totally  different  fund  of  experiences,  and,  to 
the  point  of  my  dreaming,  possessing  memories 
of  those  totally  different  experiences. 

What  was  this  personality  ?  When  had  it 
itself  lived  a  wake-a-day  life  on  this  planet  in 
order  to  collect  this  fund  of  strange  experiences  ? 
These  were  questions  that  my  dreams  themselves 
answered.  He  lived  in  the  long  ago,  when  the 
world  was  young,  in  that  period  that  we 
call  the  Mid-Pleistocene.  He  fell  from 
the  trees  but  did  not  strike  bottom. 
He  gibbered  with  fear  at  the  roaring 
of  the  lions.  He  was  pursued  by 
beasts  of  prey,  struck  at  by  deadly 
snakes.  He  chattered  with  his  kind 


. 


BEFORE   ADAM 


in  council,  and  he  received  rough  usage  at  the 
hands  of  the  Fire  People  in  the  day  that  he 
fled  before  them. 

But,  I  hear  you  objecting,  why  is  it  that  these 
racial  memories  are  not  ours  as  well,  seeing  that 
we  have  a  vague  other-personality  that  falls 
through  space  while  we  sleep  ? 

And  I  may  answer  with  another  question. 
Why  is  a  two-headed  calf?  And  my  own  an 
swer  to  this  is  that  it  is  a  freak.  And  so  I 
answer  your  question.  I  have 
this  other-personality  and  these 
complete  racial  memories  be 
cause  I  am  a  freak. 

But  let  me  be  more  explicit. 
The  commonest    race    memory 


i8  BEFORE   ADAM 

we  have  is  the  falling-through-space  dream. 
This  other-personality  is  very  vague.  About  the 
only  memory  it  has  is  that  of  falling.  But  many 
of  us  have  sharper,  more  distinct  other-person 
alities.  Many  of  us  have  the  flying  dream,  the 
pursuing-monster  dream,  color  dreams,  suffoca 
tion  dreams,  and  the  reptile  and  vermin  dreams. 
In  short,  while  this  other-personality  is  vestigial 
in  all  of  us,  in  some  of  us  it  is  almost  obliterated, 
while  in  others  of  us  it  is  more  pronounced. 
Some  of  us  have  stronger  and  completer  race 
memories  than  others. 

It  is  all  a  question  of  varying  degree  of  posses 
sion  of  the  other-personality.  In  myself,  the 
degree  of  possession  is  enormous.  My  other- 
personality  is  almost  equal  in  power  with  my 
own  personality.  And  in  this  matter  I  am,  as  I 
said,  a  freak  —  a  freak  of  heredity. 

I  do  believe  that  it  is  the  possession  of  this 
other-personality  —  but  not  so  strong  a  one  as 
mine  —  that  has  in  some  few  others  given  rise  to 
belief  in  personal  reincarnation  experiences.  It  is 
very  plausible  to  such  people,  a  most  convincing 
hypothesis.  When  they  have  visions  of  scenes 


BEFORE   ADAM  19 

they  have  never  seen  in  the  flesh,  memories  of 
acts  and  events  dating  back  in  time,  the  simplest 
explanation  is  that  they  have  lived  before. 

But  they  make  the  mistake  of  ignoring  their 
own  duality.  They  do  not  recognize  their  other- 
personality.  They  think  it  is  their  own  personal 
ity,  that  they  have  only  one  personality;  and 
from  such  a  premise  they  can  conclude  only  that 
they  have  lived  previous  lives. 

But  they  are  wrong.  It  is  not  reincarnation. 
I  have  visions  of  myself  roaming  through  the 
forests  of  the  Younger  World ;  and  yet  it  is  not 
myself  that  I  see  but  one  that  is  only  remotely  a 
part  of  me,  as  my  father  and  my  grandfather 
are  parts  of  me  less  remote.  This  other-self  of 
mine  is  an  ancestor,  a  progenitor  of  my  progeni 
tors  in  the  early  line  of  my  race,  himself  the 
progeny  of  a  line  that  long  before  his  time 
developed  fingers  and  toes  and  climbed  up 
into  the  trees. 

I  must  again,  at  the  risk  of  boring,  repeat  that 
I  am,  in  this  one  thing,  to  be  considered  a  freak. 
Not  alone  do  I  possess  racial  memory  to  an  enor 
mous  extent,  but  I  possess  the  memories  of  one 


20  BEFORE   ADAM 

particular  and  far-removed  progenitor.  And 
yet,  while  this  is  most  unusual,  there  is  nothing 
over-remarkable  about  it. 

Follow  my  reasoning.  An  instinct  is  a  racial 
memory.  Very  good.  Then  you  and  I  and  all 
of  us  receive  these  memories  from  our  fathers 
and  mothers,  as  they  received  them  from  their 
fathers  and  mothers.  Therefore  there  must  be  a 
medium  whereby  these  memories  are  transmitted 
from  generation  to  generation.  This  medium 
is  what  Weismann  terms  the  "germplasm." 
It  carries  the  memories  of  the  whole  evolution 
of  the  race.  These  memories  are  dim  and  con 
fused,  and  many  of  them  are  lost.  But  some 
strains  of  germplasm  carry  an  excessive  freight 
age  of  memories  —  are,  to  be  scientific,  more 
atavistic  than  other  strains;  and  such  a  strain 
is  mine.  I  am  a  freak  of  heredity,  an  atavistic 
nightmare  —  call  me  what  you  will;  but  here  I 
am,  real  and  alive,  eating  three  hearty  meals  a 
day,  and  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ? 

And  now,  before  I  take  up  my  tale,  I  want  to 
anticipate  the  doubting  Thomases  of  psychology, 
who  are  prone  to  scoff,  and  who  would  otherwise 


BEFORE   ADAM  21 

surely  say  that  the  coherence  of  my  dreams  is 
due  to  overstudy  and  the  subconscious  pro 
jection  of  my  knowledge  of  evolution  into  my 
dreams.  In  the  first  place,  I  have  never  been  a 
zealous  student.  I  graduated  last  of  my  class. 
I  cared  more  for  athletics,  and  —  there  is  no 
reason  I  should  not  confess  it  —  more  for 
billiards. 

Further,  I  had  no  knowledge  of  evolution  until 
I  was  at  college,  whereas  in  my  childhood  and 
youth  I  had  already  lived  in  my  dreams  all  the 
details  of  that  other,  long-ago  life.  I  will  say, 
however,  that  these  details  were  mixed  and  inco 
herent  until  I  came  to  know  the  science  of  evo 
lution.  Evolution  was  the  key.  It  gave  the 
explanation,  gave  sanity  to  the  pranks  of  this 
atavistic  brain  of  mine  that,  modern  and  normal, 
harked  back  to  a  past  so  remote  as  to  be  con 
temporaneous  with  the  raw  beginnings  of  man 
kind. 

For  in  this  past  I  know  of,  man,  as  we  to-day 
know  him,  did  not  exist.  It  was  in  the  period 
of  his  becoming  that  I  must  have  lived  and  had 
my  being. 


CHAPTER  III 


Hi* 


THE    commonest    dream    of    my    early 
childhood  was  something  like  this :    It 
seemed  that  I  was  very  small  and  that 
I  lay  curled  up  in  a  sort  of  nest  of  twigs  and 

boughs.      Some 
times  I  was  lying 
on    my    back. 
In  this  posi 
tion   it   seemed 
that    I    spent 
many   hours, 
watching  the  play  of 
sunlight     on    the     foliage 
overhead  and    the   stirring  of   the 
leaves    by   the   wind.      Often    the 
nest  itself  moved  back  and  forth 
when  the  wind  was  strong. 

But  always,  while  so  lying 
in  the  nest,  I  was  mastered 
by  a  ?  "I  feeling   as   of  tremendous   space  be- 

22 


BEFORE   ADAM  23 

neath  me.  I  never  saw  it,  I  never  peered  over 
the  edge  of  the  nest  to  see ;  but  I  knew  and  feared 
that  space  that  lurked  just  beneath  me  and 
that  ever  threatened  me  like  a  maw  of  some 
all-devouring  monster. 

This  dream,  in  which  I  was  quiescent  and 
which  was  more  like  a  condition  than  an  expe 
rience  of  action,  I  dreamed  very  often  in  my 
early  childhood.  But  suddenly,  there  would 
rush  into  the  very  midst  of  it  strange  forms  and 
ferocious  happenings,  the  thunder  and  crashing 
of  storm,  or  unfamiliar  landscapes  such  as  in 
my  wake-a-day  life  I  had  never  seen.  The 
result  was  confusion  and  nightmare.  I  could 
comprehend  nothing  of  it.  There  was  no  logic 
of  sequence. 

You  see,  I  did  not  dream  consecutively. 
One  moment  I  was  a  wee  babe  of  the  Younger 
World  lying  in  my  tree  nest ;  the  next  moment 
I  was  a  grown  man  of  the  Younger  World  locked 
in  combat  with  the  hideous  Red-Eye;  and  the 
next  moment  I  was  creeping  carefully  down  to 
the  water-hole  in  the  heat  of  the  day.  Events, 
years  apart  in  their  occurrence  in  the  Younger 


24  BEFORE   ADAM 

World,  occurred  with  me  within  the  space  of 
several  minutes,  or  seconds. 

It  was  all  a  jumble,  but  this  jumble  I  shall 
not  inflict  upon  you.  It  was  not  until  I  was 
a  young  man  and  had  dreamed  many  thousand 
times,  that  everything  straightened  out  and 
became  clear  and  plain.  Then  it  was  that  I 
got  the  clew  of  time,  and  was  able  to  piece 
together  events  and  actions  in  their  proper 
order.  Thus  was  I  able  to  reconstruct  the 
vanished  Younger  World  as  it  was  at  the  time 
I  lived  in  it  —  or  at  the  time  my  other-self  lived 
in  it.  The  distinction  does  not  matter;  for  I, 
too,  the  modern  man,  have  gone  back  and  lived 
that  early  life  in^  the  company  of  my  other- 
self. 

For  your  convenience,  since  this  is  to  be 
no  sociological  ^creed,  I  shall  frame  together 
the  different  events  into  a  comprehensive  story. 
For  there  is  a  certain  thread  of  continuity  and 
happening  that  runs  through  all  the  dreams. 
There  is  my  friendship  with  Lop-Ear,  for 
instance.  Also,  there  is  the  enmity  of  Red- 
Eye,  and  the  love  of  the  Swift  One.  Taking 


BEFORE   ADAM  25 

it  all  in  all,  a  fairly  coherent  and  interesting 
story  I  am  sure  you  will  agree. 

I  do  not  remember  much  of  my  mother. 
Possibly  the  earliest  recollection  I  have  of 
her  —  and  certainly  the  sharpest  —  is  the  fol 
lowing:  It  seemed  I  was  lying  on  the  ground. 
I  was  somewhat  older  than  during  the  nest 
days,  but  still  helpless.  I  rolled  about  in  the 
dry  leaves,  playing  with  them  and  making 
crooning,  rasping  noises  in  my  throat.  The 
sun  shone  warmly  and  I  was  happy,  and 
comfortable.  I  was  in  a  little  open  space. 
Around  me,  on  all  sides,  were  bushes  and 
fern-like  growths,  and  overhead  and  all 
about  were  the  trunks  and  branches  of  forest 
trees. 

Suddenly  I  heard  a  sound.  I  sat  upright  and 
listened.  I  made  no  movement.  The  little 
noises  died  down  in  my  throat,  and  I  sat  as  one 
petrified.  The  sound  drew  closer.  It  was 
like  the  grunt  of  a  pig.  Then  I  began  to  hear 
the  sounds  caused  by  the  moving  of  a  body 
through  the  brush.  Next  I  saw  the  ferns 
agitated  by  the  passage  of  the  body.  Then  the 


26 


BEFORE   ADAM 


ferns  parted,  and  I  saw  gleaming  eyes,  a  long 
snout,  and  white  tusks. 

It  was  a  wild  boar.  He  peered  at  me  curi 
ously.  He  grunted  once  or  twice  and  shifted 
his  weight  from  one  fore-leg  to  the  other,  at  the 
same  time  moving  his  head  from  side  to  side 

and  swaying  the  ferns. 
Still  I  sat  as  one  petri 
fied,  my  eyes  unblink 
ing  as  I  stared  at  him, 
fear  eating  at  my  heart. 
It  seemed  that  this 
movelessness  and  si 
lence  on  my  part  was 
what  was  expected  of 
me.  I  was  not  to  cry 
out  in  the  face  of  fear. 
It  was  a  dictate  of  instinct.  And  so  I  sat  there 
and  waited  for  I  knew  not  what.  The  boar 
thrust  the  ferns  aside  and  stepped  into  the 
open.  The  curiosity  went  out  of  his  eyes,  and 
they  gleamed  cruelly.  He  tossed  his  head  at 
me  threateningly  and  advanced  a  step.  This 
he  did  again,  and  yet  again. 


BEFORE   ADAM  27 

Then  I  screamed  ...  or  shrieked  —  I 
cannot  describe  it,  but  it  was  a  shrill  and  ter 
rible  cry.  And  it  seems  that  it,  too,  at  this 
stage  of  the  proceedings,  was  the  thing  ex 
pected  of  me.  From  not  far  away  came  an 
answering  cry.  My  sounds  seemed  momen 
tarily  to  disconcert  the  boar,  and  while  he  halted 
and  shifted  his  weight  with  indecision,  an  appari 
tion  burst  upon  us. 

She  was  like  a  large  orang-utan,  my  mother, 
or  like  a  chimpanzee,  and  yet,  in  sharp  and 
definite  ways,  quite  different.  She  was  heavier 
of  build  than  they,  and  had  less  hair.  Her 
arms  were  not  so  long,  and  her  legs  were  stouter. 
She  wore  no  clothes  —  only  her  natural  hair. 
And  I  can  tell  you  she  was  a  fury  when  she  was 
excited. 

And  like  a  fury  she  dashed  upon  the  scene. 
She  was  gritting  her  teeth,  making  frightful 
grimaces,  snarling,  uttering  sharp  and  continu 
ous  cries  that  sounded  like  "kh-ah!  kh-ah!" 
So  sudden  and  formidable  was  her  appearance 
that  the  boar  involuntarily  bunched  himself 
together  on  the  defensive  and  bristled  as  she 


28  BEFORE   ADAM 

swerved  toward  him.  Then  she  swerved 
toward  me.  She  had  quite  taken  the  breath  out 
of  him.  I  knew  just  what  to  do  in  that  moment 
of  time  she  had  gained.  I  leaped  to  meet  her, 
catching  her  about  the  waist  and  holding  on 
hand  and  foot  —  yes,  by  my  feet;  I  could  hold 
on  by  them  as  readily  as  by  my  hands.  I  could 
feel  in  my  tense  grip  the  pull  of  the  hair  as  her 
skin  and  her  muscles  moved  beneath  with  her 
efforts. 

As  I  say,  I  leaped  to  meet  her,  and  on  the 
instant  she  leaped  straight  up  into  the  air, 
catching  an  overhanging  branch  with  her  hands. 
The  next  instant,  with  clashing  tusks,  the  boar 
drove  past  underneath.  He  had  recovered  from 
his  surprise  and  sprung  forward,  emitting  a 
squeal  that  was  almost  a  trumpeting.  At  any 
rate  it  was  a  call,  for  it  was  followed  by  the 
rushing  of  bodies  through  the  ferns  and  brush 
from  all  directions. 

From  every  side  wild  hogs  dashed  into  the 
open  space  —  a  score  of  them.  But  my  mother 
swung  over  the  top  of  a  thick  limb,  a  dozen  feet 
from  the  ground,  and,  still  holding  on  to  her, 


"The  next  instant,  with  clashing  tusks,  the  boar  drove 
past  underneath." 


BEFORE  ADAM 


we   perched   there 
in  safety.    She  was 
very  excited.     She      \ 
chattered      and 
screamed,  and  scolded 
down  at  the  bristling, 
tooth -gnashing   circle 
that    had    gath 
ered  beneath.  I,  too, 
trembling,    peered    down 
at  the  angry  beasts  and 
did    my  best    to  imitate 
my  mother's  cries. 

From     the     distance     came 
similar  cries,  only  pitched  deeper, 
into  a  sort  of  roaring  bass.     These 
grew  momentarily  louder,  and   soon 
I  saw  him  approaching,  my  father  —  at  least, 
by  all  the  evidence  of  the  times,  I  am  driven 
to  conclude  that  he  was  my  father. 

He  was  not  an  extremely  prepossessing  father, 
as  fathers  go.  He  seemed  half  man,  and  half 
ape,  and  yet  not  ape,  and  not  yet  man.  I  fail 
to  describe  him.  There  is  nothing  like  him 


32  BEFORE   ADAM 

to-day  on  the  earth,  under  the  earth,  nor  in 
the  earth.  He  was  a  large  man  in  his  day, 
and  he  must  have  weighed  all  of  a  hundred 
and  thirty  pounds.  His  face  was  broad  and 
flat,  and  the  eyebrows  over-hung  the  eyes. 
The  eyes  themselves  were  small,  deep-set,  and 
close  together.  He  had  practically  no  nose  at 
all.  It  was  squat  and  broad,  apparently  with 
out  any  bridge,  while  the  nostrils  were  like  two 
holes  in  the  face,  opening  outward  instead  of 
down. 

The  forehead  slanted  back  from  the  eyes,  and 
the  hair  began  right  at  the  eyes  and  ran  up  over 
the  head.  The  head  itself  was  preposterously 
small  and  was  supported  on  an  equally  pre 
posterous,  thick,  short  neck. 

There  was  an  elemental  economy  about  his 
body  —  as  was  there  about  all  our  bodies. 
The  chest  was  deep,  it  is  true,  cavernously 
deep;  but  there  were  no  full-swelling  muscles, 
no  wide-spreading  shoulders,  no  clean-limbed 
straightness,  no  generous  symmetry  of  outline. 
It  represented  strength,  that  body  of  my  father's, 
strength  without  beauty;  ferocious,  primordial 


BEFORE   ADAM  33 

strength,  made  to  clutch  and  gripe  and  rend 
and  destroy. 

His  hips  were  thin;  and  the  legs,  lean  and 
hairy,  were  crooked  and  stringy-muscled.  In 
fact,  my  father's  legs  were  more  like  arms. 
They  were  twisted  and  gnarly,  and  with  scarcely 
the  semblance  of  the  full  meaty  calf  such  as 
graces  your  leg  and  mine.  I  remember  he 
could  not  walk  on  the  flat  of  his  foot.  This 
was  because  it  was  a  prehensile  foot,  more  like 
a  hand  than  a  foot.  The  great  toe,  instead  of 
being  in  line  with  the  other  toes,  opposed  them, 
like  a  thumb,  and  its  opposition  to  the  other 
toes  was  what  enabled  him  to  get  a  grip  with 
his  foot.  This  was  why  he  could  not  walk  on 
the  flat  of  his  foot. 

But  his  appearance  was  no  more  unusual 
than  the  manner  of  his  coming,  there  to  my 
mother  and  me  as  we  perched  above  the  angry 
wild  pigs.  He  came  through  the  trees,  leaping 
from  limb  to  limb  and  from  tree  to  tree ;  and  he 
came  swiftly.  I  can  see  him  now,  in  my  wake- 
a-day  life,  as  I  write  this,  swinging  along  through 
the  trees,  a  four-handed,  hairy  creature,  howling 


34  BEFORE   ADAM 

with  rage,  pausing  now  and  again  to  beat  his 
chest  with  his  clenched  fist,  leaping  ten-and- 
fifteen-foot  gaps,  catching  a  branch  with  one 
hand  and  swinging  on  across  another  gap  to 
catch  with  his  other  hand  and  go  on,  never  hesi 
tating,  never  at  a  loss  as  to  how  to  proceed  on 
his  arboreal  way. 

And  as  I  watched  him  I  felt  in  my  own  being, 
in  my  very  muscles  themselves,  the  surge  and 
thrill  of  desire  to  go  leaping  from  bough  to 
bough;  and  I  felt  also  the  guarantee  of  the 
latent  power  in  that  being  and  in  those  muscles 
of  mine.  And  why  not  ?  Little  boys  watch 
their  fathers  swing  axes  and  fell  trees,  and  feel 
in  themselves  that  some  day  they,  too,  will 
swing  axes  and  fell  trees.  And  so  with  me. 
The  life  that  was  in  me  was  constituted  to  do 
what  my  father  did,  and  it  whispered  to  me 
secretly  and  ambitiously  of  aerial  paths  and 
forest  flights. 

At  last  my  father  joined  us.  He  was  ex 
tremely  angry.  I  remember  the  out-thrust  of 
his  protruding  underlip  as  he  glared  down  at  the 
wild  pigs.  He  snarled  something  like  a  dog, 


BEFORE   ADAM  35 

and  I  remember  that  his  eye-teeth  were  large, 
like  fangs,  and  that  they  impressed  me  tre 
mendously. 

His  conduct  served  only  the  more  to  infuriate 
the  pigs.  He  broke  off  twigs  and  small  branches 
and  flung  them  down  upon  our  enemies.  He 
even  hung  by  one  hand,  tantalizingly  just  beyond 
reach,  and 
mocked  them  as 
they  gnashed  their 
tusks  with  impo 
tent  rage.  Not  con 
tent  with  this,  he 
broke  off  a  stout 
branch,  and,  hold 
ing  on  with  one 
hand  and  foot, 
jabbed  the 
infuriated 
beasts  in 
the  sides 
and  whacked 
them  across 
their  noses. 


36  BEFORE   ADAM 

Needless  to  state,  my  mother  and  I  enjoyed 
the  sport. 

But  one  tires  of  all  good  things,  and  in  the 
end,  my  father,  chuckling  maliciously  the  while, 
led  the  way  across  the  trees.  Now  it  was  that 
my  ambitions  ebbed  away,  and  I  became  timid, 
holding  tightly  to  my  mother  as  she  climbed  and 
swung  through  space.  I  remember  when  the 
branch  broke  with  her  weight.  She  had  made 
a  wide  leap,  and  with  the  snap  of  the  wood  I 
was  overwhelmed  with  the  sickening  conscious 
ness  of  falling  through  space,  the  pair  of  us. 
The  forest  and  the  sunshine  on  the  rustling 
leaves  vanished  from  my  eyes.  I  had  a  fading 
glimpse  of  my  father  abruptly  arresting  his 
progress  to  look,  and  then  all  was  blackness. 

The  next  moment  I  was  awake,  in  my  sheeted 
bed,  sweating,  trembling,  nauseated.  The  win 
dow  was  up,  and  a  cool  air  was  blowing  through 
the  room.  The  night-lamp  was  burning  calmly. 
And  because  of  this  I  take  it  that  the  wild  pigs 
did  not  get  us,  that  we  never  fetched  bottom ; 
else  I  should  not  be  here  now,  a  thousand  cen 
turies  after,  to  remember  the  event. 


BEFORE   ADAM  37 

And  now  put  yourself  in  my  place  for  a 
moment.  Walk  with  me  a  bit  in  my  tender 
childhood,  bed  with  me  a  night  and  imagine 
yourself  dreaming  such  incomprehensible  hor 
rors.  Remember  I  was  an  inexperienced  child. 
I  had  never  seen  a  wild  boar  in  my  life.  For  that 
matter  I  had  never  seen  a  domesticated  pig. 
The  nearest  approach  to  one  that  I  had  seen  was 
breakfast  bacon  sizzling  in  its  fat.  And  yet 
here,  real  as  life,  wild  boars  dashed  through 
my  dreams,  and  I,  with  fantastic  parents, 
swung  through  the  lofty  tree-spaces. 

Do  you  wonder  that  I  was  frightened  and 
oppressed  by  my  nightmare-ridden  nights  ?  I 
was  accursed.  And,  worst  of  all,  I  was  afraid 
to  tell.  I  do  not  know  why,  except  that  I  had 
a  feeling  of  guilt,  though  I  knew  no  better  of 
what  I  was  guilty.  So  it  was,  through  long 
years,  that  I  suffered  in  silence,  until  I  came  to 
man's  estate  and  learned  the  why  and  wherefore 
of  my  dreams. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THERE  is  one  puzzling  thing  about  these 
prehistoric  memories  of  mine.  It  is 
the  vagueness  of  the  time  element.  I 
do  not  always  know  the  order  of  events; 
nor  can  I  tell,  between  some  events,  whether 
one,  two,  or  four  or  five  years  have  elapsed. 
I  can  only  roughly  tell  the  passage  of  time  by 
judging  the  changes  in  the  appearance  and  pur 
suits  of  my  fellows. 

Also,  I  can  apply  the  logic  of  events  to  the 
various  happenings.  For  instance,  there  is  no 
doubt  whatever  that  my  mother  and  I  were  treed 
by  the  wild  pigs  and  fled  and  fell  in  the  days 
before  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Lop-Ear, 
who  became  what  I  may  call  my  boyhood 
chum.  And  it  is  just  as  conclusive  that  between 
these  two  periods  I  must  have  left  my  mother. 

I  have  no  memory  of  my  father  than  the  one 
I  have  given.  Never,  in  the  years  that  followed, 

38 


BEFORE   ADAM  39 

did  he  reappear.  And  from  my  knowledge  of 
the  times,  the  only  explanation  possible  lies  in 
that  he  perished  shortly  after  the  adventure  with 
the  wild  pigs.  That  it  must  have  been  an 
untimely  end,  there  is  no  discussion.  He  was 
in  full  vigor,  and  only  sudden  and  violent 
death  could  have  taken  him  off.  But  I  know 
not  the  manner 
of  his  going  — 
whether  he  was 
drowned  in  the 
river,  or  was 
swallowed  by  a  snake,  or  went  into  the  stom 
ach  of  old  Saber-Tooth,  the  tiger,  is  beyond 
my  knowledge. 

For  know  that  I  remember  only  the  things  I 
saw  myself,  with  my  own  eyes,  in  those  pre 
historic  days.  If  my  mother  knew  my  father's 
end,  she  never  told  me.  For  that  matter  I  doubt 
if  she  had  a  vocabulary  adequate  to  convey 
such  information.  Perhaps,  all  told,  the  Folk 
in  that  day  had  a  vocabulary  of  thirty  or  forty 
sounds. 

I  call  them  sounds,  rather  than  words,  be- 


40  BEFORE   ADAM 

cause  sounds  they  were  primarily.  They  had 
no  fixed  values,  to  be  altered  by  adjectives  and 
adverbs.  These  latter  were  tools  of  speech 
not  yet  invented.  Instead  of  qualifying  nouns 
or  verbs  by  the  use  of  adjectives  and  adverbs, 
we  qualified  sounds  by  intonation,  by  changes 
in  quantity  and  pitch,  by  retarding  and  by 
accelerating.  The  length  of  time  employed  in 
the  utterance  of  a  particular  sound  shaded  its 
meaning. 

We  had  no  conjugation.  One  judged  the 
tense  by  the  context.  We  talked  only  concrete 
things  because  we  thought  only  concrete  things. 
Also,  we  depended  largely  on  pantomime.  The 
simplest  abstraction  was  practically  beyond  our 
thinking;  and  when  one  did  happen  to  think 
one,  he  was  hard  put  to  communicate  it  to  his 
fellows.  There  were  no  sounds  for  it.  He  was 
pressing  beyond  the  limits  of  his  vocabulary. 
If  he  invented  sounds  for  it,  his  fellows  did  not 
understand  the  sounds.  Then  it  was  that  he 
fell  back  on  pantomime,  illustrating  the  thought 
wherever  possible  and  at  the  same  time  repeat 
ing  the  new  sound  over  and  over  again. 


BEFORE   ADAM  41 

Thus  language  grew.  By  the  few  sounds  we 
possessed  we  were  enabled  to  think  a  short  dis 
tance  beyond  those  sounds;  then  came  the 
need  for  new  sounds  wherewith  to  express  the 
new  thought.  Sometimes,  however,  we  thought 
too  long  a  distance  in  advance  of  our  sounds, 
managed  to  achieve  abstractions  (dim  ones  I 
grant),  which  we  failed  utterly  to  make  known 
to  other  folk.  After  all,  language  did  not  grow 
fast  in  that  day. 

Oh,  believe  me,  we  were  amazingly  simple. 
But  we  did  know  a  lot  that  is  not  known 
to-day.  We  could  twitch  our  ears,  prick  them 
up  and  flatten  them  down  at  will.  And  we  could 
scratch  between  our  shoulders  with  ease.  We 
could  throw  stones  with  our  feet.  I  have  done 
it  many  a  time.  And  for  that  matter,  I  could 
keep  my  knees  straight,  bend  forward  from  the 
hips,  and  touch,  not  the  tips  of  my  fingers,  but 
the  points  of  my  elbows,  to  the  ground.  And 
as  for  bird-nesting  —  well,  I  only  wish  the 
twentieth-century  boy  could  see  us.  But  we 
made  no  collections  of  eggs.  We  ate  them. 

I    remember  —  but    I    out-run    my    story. 


42  BEFORE   ADAM 

First  let  me  tell  of  Lop-Ear  and  our  friendship. 
Very  early  in  my  life,  I  separated  from  my 
mother.  Possibly  this  was  because,  after  the 
death  of  my  father,  she  took  to  herself  a 
second  husband.  I  have  few  recollections  of 
him,  and  they  are  not  of  the  best.  He  was  a 
light  fellow.  There  was  no  solidity  to  him. 
He  was  too  voluble.  His  infernal  chattering 
worries  me  even  now  as  I  think  of  it.  His  mind 
was  too  inconsequential  to  permit  him  to  possess 
purpose.  Monkeys  in  their  cages  always  re 
mind  me  of  him.  He  was  monkeyish.  That  is 
the  best  description  I  can  give  of  him. 

He  hated  me  from  the  first.  And  I  quickly 
learned  to  be  afraid  of  him  and  his  malicious 
pranks.  Whenever  he  came  in  sight  I  crept 
close  to  my  mother  and  clung  to  her.  But  I 
was  growing  older  all  the  time,  and  it  was  inevi 
table  that  I  should  from  time  to  time  stray 
from  her,  and  stray  farther  and  farther.  And 
these  were  the  opportunities  that  the  Chatterer 
waited  for.  (I  may  as  well  explain  that  we  bore 
no  names  in  those  days;  were  not  known  by 
any  name.  For  the  sake  of  convenience  I  have 


BEFORE   ADAM  43 

myself  given  names  to  the  various  Folk  I  was 
more  closely  in  contact  with,  and  the  "Chat 
terer"  is  the  most  fitting  description  I  can  find 
for  that  precious  stepfather  of  mine.  As  for 
me,  I  have  named  myself  "Big-Tooth."  My 
eye-teeth  were  pronouncedly  large.) 

But  to  return  to  the  Chatterer.  He  persist 
ently  terrorized  me.  He  was  always  pinching 
me  and  cuffing  me,  and  on  occasion  he  was  not 
above  biting  me.  Often  my  mother  interfered, 
and  the  way  she  made  his  fur  fly  was  a  joy  to  see. 
But  the  result  of  all  this  was  a  beautiful  and 
unending  family  quarrel,  in  which  I  was  the 
bone  of  contention. 

No,  my  home-life  was  not  happy.  I  smile 
to  myself  as  I  write  the  phrase.  Home-life ! 
Home !  I  had  no  home  in  the  modern  sense 
of  the  term.  My  home  was  an  association,  not 
a  habitation.  I  lived  in  my  mother's  care,  not 
in  a  house.  And  my  mother  lived  anywhere, 
so  long  as  when  night  came  she  was  above  the 
ground. 

My  mother  was  old-fashioned.  She  still 
clung  to  her  trees.  It  is  true,  the  more  pro- 


44  BEFORE   ADAM 

gressive  members  of  our  horde  lived  in  the  caves 
above  the  river.  But  my  mother  was  suspicious 
and  unprogressive.  The  trees  were  good  enough 
for  her.  Of  course,  we  had  one  particular  tree 
in  which  we  usually  roosted,  though  we  often 
roosted  in  other  trees  when  nightfall  caught  us. 
In  a  convenient  fork  was  a  sort  of  rude  platform 
of  twigs  and  branches  and  creeping  things. 
It  was  more  like  a  huge  bird-nest  than  any 
thing  else,  though  it  was  a  thousand  times 
cruder  in  the  weaving  than  any  bird-nest. 
But  it  had  one  feature  that  I  have  never  seen 
attached  to  any  bird-nest,  namely,  a  roof. 

Oh,  not  a  roof  such  as  modern  man  makes ! 
Nor  a  roof  such  as  is  made  by  the  lowest  abo 
rigines  of  to-day.  It  was  infinitely  more  clumsy 
than  the  clumsiest  handiwork  of  man  —  of 
man  as  we  know  him.  It  was  put  together  in  a 
casual,  helter-skelter  sort  of  way.  Above  the 
fork  of  the  tree  whereon  we  rested  was  a  pile 
of  dead  branches  and  brush.  Four  or  five 
adjacent  forks  held  what  I  may  term  the  various 
ridge-poles.  These  were  merely  stout  sticks 
an  inch  or  so  in  diameter.  On  them  rested  the 


BEFORE   ADAM  45 

brush   and  branches.     These  seemed  to  have 
been  tossed  on  almost  aimlessly.     There  was 
no  attempt  at  thatching.     And  I  must  confess 
that    the    roof 
leaked  misera 
bly  in  a  heavy 
rain. 

But  the  Chat 
terer.  He  made 
home-lifet a  bur 
den  for  both 
my  mother  and 
me  —  and  by 
home-life  I  mean,  not  the  leaky  nest  in  the  tree, 
but  the  group-life  of  the  three  of  us.  He  was 
most  malicious  in  his  persecution  of  me.  That 
was  the  one  purpose  to  which  he  held  stead 
fastly  for  longer  than  five  minutes.  Also,  as 
time  went  by,  my  mother  was  less  eager  in  her 
defence  of  me.  I  think,  what  of  the  continuous 
rows  raised  by  the  Chatterer,  that  I  must  have 
become  a  nuisance  to  her.  At  any  rate,  the 
situation  went  from  bad  to  worse  so  rapidly 
that  I  should  soon,  of  my  own  volition,  have 


46      .  BEFORE   ADAM 

left  home.  But  the  satisfaction  of  performing 
so  independent  an  act  was  denied  me.  Before 
I  was  ready  to  go,  I  was  thrown  out.  And  I 
mean  this  literally. 

The  opportunity  came  to  the  Chatterer  one 
day  when  I  was  alone  in  the  nest.  My  mother 
and  the  Chatterer  had  gone  away  together 
toward  the  blueberry  swamp.  He  must  have 
planned  the  whole  thing,  for  I  heard  him 
returning  alone  through  the  forest,  roaring  with 
self-induced  rage  as  he  came.  Like  all  the 
men  of  our  horde,  when  they  were  angry  or 
were  trying  to  make  themselves  angry,  he 
stopped  now  and  again  to  hammer  on  his  chest 
with  his  fist. 

I  realized  the  helplessness  of  my  situation, 
and  crouched  trembling  in  the  nest.  The 
Chatterer  came  directly  to  the  tree  —  I  remem 
ber  it  was  an  oak  tree  —  and  began  to  climb 
up.  And  he  never  ceased  for  a  moment  from 
his  infernal  row.  As  I  have  said,  our  language 
was  extremely  meagre,  and  he  must  have  strained 
it  by  the  variety  of  ways  in  which  he  informed 
me  of  his  undying  hatred  of  me  and  of  his  in- 


BEFORE   ADAM  47 

tention  there  and  then  to  have  it  out  with 
me. 

As  he  climbed  to  the  fork,  I  fled  out  the  great 
horizontal  limb.  He  followed  me,  and  out  I 
went,  farther  and  farther.  At  last  I  was  out 
amongst  the  small  twigs  and  leaves.  The 
Chatterer  was  ever  a  coward,  and  greater  always 
than  any  anger  he  ever  worked  up  was  his  cau 
tion.  He  was  afraid  to  follow  me  out  amongst 
the  leaves  and  twigs.  For  that  matter,  his 
greater  weight  would  have  crashed  him  through 
the  foliage  before  he  could  have  got  to  me. 

But  it  was  not  necessary  for  him  to  reach  me, 
and  well  he  knew  it,  the  scoundrel !  With  a 
malevolent  expression  on  his  face,  his  beady 
eyes  gleaming  with  cruel  intelligence,  he  began 
teetering.  Teetering  !  —  and  with  me  out  on 
the  very  edge  of  the  bough,  clutching  at  the 
twigs  that  broke  continually  with  my  weight. 
Twenty  feet  beneath  me  was  the  earth. 

Wildly  and  more  wildly  he  teetered,  grinning 
at  me  his  gloating  hatred.  Then  came  the 
end.  All  four  holds  broke  at  the  same  time, 
and  I  fell,  back-downward,  looking  up  at  him, 


48  BEFORE   ADAM 

my  hands  and  feet  still  clutching  the  broken 
twigs.  Luckily,  there  were  no  wild  pigs  under 
me,  and  my  fall  was  broken  by  the  tough  and 
springy  bushes. 

Usually,  my  falls  destroy  my  dreams,  the 
nervous  shock  being  sufficient  to  bridge  the 
thousand  centuries  in  an  instant  and  hurl  me 
wide  awake  into  my  little  bed,  where,  per 
chance,  I  lie  sweating  and  trembling  and  hear 
the  cuckoo  clock  calling  the  hour  in  the  hall. 
But  this  dream  of  my  leaving  home  I  have  had 
many  times,  and  never  yet  have  I  been  awakened 
by  it.  Always  do  I  crash,  shrieking,  down 
through  the  brush  and  fetch  up  with  a  bump 
on  the  ground. 

Scratched  and  bruised  and  whimpering,  I 
lay  where  I  had  fallen.  Peering  up  through 
the  bushes,  I  could  see  the  Chatterer.  He  had 
set  up  a  demoniacal  chant  of  joy  and  was  keep 
ing  time  to  it  with  his  teetering.  I  quickly 
hushed  my  whimpering.  I  was  no  longer  in 
the  safety  of  the  trees,  and  I  knew  the  danger  I 
ran  of  bringing  upon  myself  the  hunting  animals 
by  too  audible  an  expression  of  my  grief. 


BEFORE   ADAM  49 

I  remember,  as  my  sobs  died  down,  that  I 
became  interested  in  watching  the  strange 
light-effects  produced  by  partially  opening  and 
closing  my  tear-wet  eyelids.  Then  I  began  to 
investigate,  and  found  that  I  was  not  so  very 
badly  damaged  by  my  fall.  I  had  lost  some  hair 
and  hide,  here  and  there;  the  sharp  and  jagged 
end  of  a  broken  branch  had  thrust  fully  an  inch 
into  my  forearm;  and  my  right  hip,  which  had 
borne  the  brunt  of  my  contact  with  the  ground, 
was  aching  intolerably.  But  these,  after  all, 
were  only  petty  hurts.  No  bones  were  broken, 
and  in  those  days  the  flesh  of  man  had  finer 
healing  qualities  than  it  has  to-day.  Yet 
it  was  a  severe  fall,  for  I  limped  with  my  in 
jured  hip  for  fully  a  week  afterward. 

Next,  as  I  lay  in  the  bushes,  there  came  upon 
me  a  feeling  of  desolation,  a  consciousness  that 
I  was  homeless.  I  made  up  my  mind  never  to 
return  to  my  mother  and  the  Chatterer.  I 
would  go  far  away  through  the  terrible  forest, 
and  find  some  tree  for  myself  in  which  to  roost. 
As  for  food,  I  knew  where  to  find  it.  For  the 
last  year  at  least  I  had  not  been  beholden  to 


50  BEFORE   ADAM 

my  mother  for  food.  All  she  had  furnished  me 
was  protection  and  guidance. 

I  crawled  softly  out  through  the  bushes. 
Once  I  looked  back  and  saw  the  Chatterer 
still  chanting  and  teetering.  It  was  not  a 
pleasant  sight.  I  knew  pretty  well  how  to  be 
cautious,  and  I  was  exceedingly  careful  on  this 
my  first  journey  in  the  world. 

I  gave  no  thought  as  to  where  I  was  going. 
I  had  but  one  purpose,  and  that  was  to  go  away 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  Chatterer.  I  climbed 
into  the  trees  and  wandered  on  amongst  them 
for  hours,  passing  from  tree  to  tree  and  never 
touching  the  ground.  But  I  did  not  go  in  any 
particular  direction,  nor  did  I  travel  steadily. 
It  was  my  nature,  as  it  was  the  nature  of  all 
my  folk,  to  be  inconsequential.  Besides,  I 
was  a  mere  child,  and  I  stopped  a  great  deal  to 
play  by  the  way. 

The  events  that  befell  me  on  my  leaving  home 
are  very  vague  in  my  mind.  My  dreams  do 
not  cover  them.  Much  has  my  other-self  for 
gotten,  and  particularly  at  this  very  period. 
Nor  have  I  been  able  to  frame  up  the  various 


BEFORE   ADAM 


jr       ^^~  /^ 


/  ^  JL 

Kw 

Mr       dreams    so 


as    to   bridge  the 

gap  between  my  leaving  the  home- 
tree  and  my  arrival  at  the  caves. 

I  remember  that  several  times  I  came  to 
open  spaces.  These  I  crossed  in  great  trepi 
dation,  descending  to  the  ground  and  running 
at  the  top  of  my  speed.  I  remember  that  there 
were  days  of  rain  and  days  of  sunshine,  so  that 
I  must  have  wandered  alone  for  quite  a  time. 
I  especially  dream  of  my  misery  in  the  rain,  and 
of  my  sufferings  from  hunger  and  how  I  ap 
peased  it.  One  very  strong  impression  is  of 
hunting  little  lizards  on  the  rocky  top  of  an  open 
knoll.  They  ran  under  the  rocks,  and  most  of 
them  escaped;  but  occasionally  I  turned  over 
a  stone  and  caught  one.  I  was  frightened  away 
from  this  knoll  by  snakes.  They  did  not  pursue 


52  BEFORE   ADAM 

me.  They  were  merely  basking  on  flat  rocks 
in  the  sun.  But  such  was  my  inherited  fear 
of  them  that  I  fled  as  fast  as  if  they  had  been 
after  me. 

Then  I  gnawed  bitter  bark  from  young  trees. 
I  remember  vaguely  the  eating  of  many  green 
nuts,  with  soft  shells  and  milky  kernels.  And 
I  remember  most  distinctly  suffering  from  a 
stomach-ache.  It  may  have  been  caused  by 
the  green  nuts,  and  maybe  by  the  lizards.  I 
do  not  know.  But  I  do  know  that  I  was  for 
tunate  in  not  being  devoured  during  the  several 
hours  I  was  knotted  up  on  the  ground  with  the 
colic. 


CHAPTER   V 

MY  vision  of  the  scene  came  abruptly, 
as  I  emerged  from  the  forest.    I  found 
myself  on  the  edge  of  a  large  clear 
space.     On  one  side  of  this  space  rose  up  high 
bluffs.    On  the  other  side  was  the  river.    The 
earth  bank  ran  steeply  down  to  the  water,  but 
here  and  there,  in  several  places,  where  at  some 
time  slides  of  earth  had  occurred,  there  were 
run-ways.     These  were  the  drinking-places  of 
the  Folk  that  lived  in  the  caves. 

And  this  was  the  main  abiding-place  of  the 
Folk  that  I  had  chanced  upon.  This  was,  I 
may  say,  by  stretching  the  word,  the  village. 
My  mother  and  the  Chatterer  and  I,  and  a  few 
other  simple  bodies,  were  what  might  be  termed 
suburban  residents.  We  were  part  of  the  horde, 
though  we  lived  a  distance  away  from  it.  It  was 
only  a  short  distance,  though  it  had  taken  me, 
what  of  my  wandering,  all  of  a  week  to  arrive. 

53 


54  BEFORE   ADAM 

Had  I  come  directly,  I  could  have  covered  the 
trip  in  an  hour. 

But  to  return.  From  the  edge  of  the  forest 
I  saw  the  caves  in  the  bluff,  the  open  space, 
and  the  run-ways  to  the  drinking-places.  And 
in  the  open  space  I  saw  many  of  the  Folk.  I 
had  been  straying,  alone  and  a  child,  for  a 
week.  During  that  time  I  had  seen  not  one  of 
my  kind.  I  had  lived  in  terror  and  desolation. 
And  now,  at  the  sight  of  my  kind,  I  was  over 
come  with  gladness,  and  I  ran  wildly  toward 
them. 

Then  it  was  that  a  strange  thing  happened. 
Some  one  of  the  Folk  saw  me  and  uttered  a 
warning  cry.  On  the  instant,  crying  out  with 
fear  and  panic,  the  Folk  fled  away.  Leaping 
and  scrambling  over  the  rocks,  they  plunged 
into  the  mouths  of  the  caves  and  disappeared 
...  all  but  one,  a  little  baby,  that  had  been 
dropped  in  the  excitement  close  to  the  base 
of  the  bluff.  He  was  wailing  dolefully.  His 
mother  dashed  out;  he  sprang  to  meet  her 
and  held  on  tightly  as  she  scrambled  back  into 
the  cave. 


BEFORE   ADAM  55 

I  was  all  alone.  The  populous  open  space 
had  of  a  sudden  become  deserted.  I  sat  down 
forlornly  and  whimpered.  I  could  not  under 
stand.  Why  had  the  Folk  run  away  from  me  ? 
In  later  time,  when  I  came  to  know  their  ways, 
I  was  to  learn.  When  they  saw  me  dashing  out 
of  the  forest  at  top  speed  they  concluded  that 
I  was  being  pursued  by  some  hunting  animal. 
By  my  unceremonious  approach  I  had  stam 
peded  them. 

As  I  sat  and  watched  the  cave-mouths  I 
became  aware  that  the  Folk  were  watching 
me.  Soon  they  were  thrusting  their  heads  out. 
A  little  later  they  were  calling  back  and  forth 
to  one  another.  In  the  hurry  and  confusion  it 
had  happened  that  all  had  not  gained  their 
own  caves.  Some  of  the  young  ones  had  sought 
refuge  in  other  caves.  The  mothers  did  not 
call  for  them  by  name,  because  that  was  an 
invention  we  had  not  yet  made.  All  were 
nameless.  The  mothers  uttered  querulous,  anx 
ious  cries,  which  were  recognized  by  the  young 
ones.  Thus,  had  my  mother  been  there  calling 
to  me,  I  should  have  recognized  her  voice 


56  BEFORE   ADAM 

amongst  the  voices  of  a  thousand  mothers,  and 
in  the  same  way  would  she  have  recognized 
mine  amongst  a  thousand. 

This  calling  back  and  forth  continued  for 
some  time,  but  they  were  too  cautious  to  come 
out  of  their  caves  and  descend  to  the  ground. 
Finally  one  did  come.  He  was  destined  to 
play  a  large  part  in  my  life,  and  for  that  matter 
he  already  played  a  large  part  in  the  lives  of 
all  the  members  of  the  horde.  He  it  was  whom 
I  shall  call  Red-Eye  in  the  pages  of  this  his 
tory  —  so  called  because  of  his  inflamed  eyes, 
the  lids  being  always  red,  and,  by  the  peculiar 
effect  they  produced,  seeming  to  advertise  the 
terrible  savagery  of  him.  The  color  of  his 
soul  was  red. 

He  was  a  monster  in  all  ways.  Physically 
he  was  a  giant.  He  must  have  weighed  one 
hundred  and  seventy  pounds.  He  was  the 
largest  one  of  our  kind  I  ever  saw.  Nor  did 
I  ever  see  one  of  the  Fire  People  so  large  as  he, 
nor  one  of  the  Tree  People.  Sometimes,-when 
in  the  newspapers  I  happen  upon  descriptions 
of  our  modern  bruisers  and  prizefighters,  I 


BEFORE   ADAM  57 

wonder  what  chance  the  best  of  them  would 
have  had  against  him. 

I  am  afraid  not  much  of  a  chance.  With  one 
grip  of  his  iron  fingers  and  a  pull,  he  could  have 
plucked  a  muscle,  say  a  biceps,  by  the  roots, 
clear  out  of  their  bodies.  A  back-handed, 
loose  blow  of  his  fist  could  have  smashed  their 
skulls  like  egg-shells.  With  a  sweep  of  his 
wicked  feet  (or  hind-hands)  he  could  have 
disembowelled  them.  A  twist  could  have  broken 
their  necks,  and  I  know  that  with  a  single 
crunch  of  his  jaws  he  could  have  pierced,  at 
the  same  moment,  the  great  vein  of  the  throat 
in  front  and  the  spinal  marrow  at  the  back. 

He  could  spring  twenty  feet  horizontally 
from  a  sitting  position.  He  was  abominably 
hairy.  It  was  a  matter  of  pride  with  us  to 
be  not  very  hairy.  But  he  was  covered  with 
hair  all  over,  on  the  inside  of  the  arms  as  well 
as  the  outside,  and  even  the  ears  themselves. 
The  only  places  on  him  where  the  hair  did  not 
grow  were  the  soles  of  his  hands  and  feet  and 
beneath  his  eyes.  He  was  frightfully  ugly,  his 
ferocious  grinning  mouth  and  huge  down-hang- 


BEFORE  ADAM 


'   litaflmmgmmfim^maR  \^ 

ing  under-    «BS  W      lip  being 

but  in  har-   ^  1H|H^H^B    IP      niony  with 
his    terrible     jRlHlHIPI      e7es- 

This  was  ^•'J^^jjff\  Red-Eye.  And 
right  gingerly  he  crept  out  of  his  cave  and 
descended  to  the  ground.  Ignoring  me,  he 
proceeded  to  reconnoitre.  He  bent  forward 
from  the  hips  as  he  walked;  and  so  far  for 
ward  did  he  bend,  and  so  long  were  his  arms, 
that  with  every  step  he  touched  the  knuckles 
of  his  hands  to  the  ground  on  either  side  of 
him.  He  was  awkward  in  the  semi-erect  posi 
tion  of  walking  that  he  assumed,  and  he  really 
touched  his  knuckles  to  the  ground  in  order  to 
balance  himself.  But  oh,  I  tell  you  he  could 


BEFORE   ADAM  59 

run  on  all-fours !  Now  this  was  something  at 
which  we  were  particularly  awkward.  Further 
more,  it  was  a  rare  individual  among  us  who 
balanced  himself  with  his  knuckles  when  walk 
ing.  Such  an  individual  was  an  atavism,  and 
Red-Eye  was  an  even  greater  atavism. 

That  is  what  he  was  —  an  atavism.  We  were 
in  the  process  of  changing  our  tree-life  to  life 
on  the  ground.  For  many  generations  we  had 
been  going  through  this  change,  and  our  bodies 
and  carriage  had  likewise  changed.  But  Red- 
Eye  had  reverted  to  the  more  primitive  tree- 
dwelling  type.  Perforce,  because  he  was  born 
in  our  horde  he  stayed  with  us;  but  in  ac 
tuality  he  was  an  atavism  and  his  place  was 
elsewhere. 

Very  circumspect  and  very  alert,  he  moved 
here  and  there  about  the  open  space,  peering 
through  the  vistas  among  the  trees  and  trying 
to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  hunting  animal  that 
all  suspected  had  pursued  me.  And  while  he 
did  this,  taking  no  notice  of  me,  the  Folk 
crowded  at  the  cave-mouths  and  watched. 

At  last  he  evidently  decided  that  there  was 


60  BEFORE   ADAM 

no  danger  lurking  about.  He  was  returning 
from  the  head  of  the  run-way,  from  where  he 
had  taken  a  peep  down  at  the  drinking-place. 
His  course  brought  him  near,  but  still  he  did 
not  notice  me.  He  proceeded  casually  on  his 
way  until  abreast  of  me,  and  then,  without 
warning  and  with  incredible  swiftness,  he  smote 
me  a  buffet  on  the  head.  I  was  knocked 
backward  fully  a  dozen  feet  before  I  fetched 
up  against  the  ground,  and  I  remember,  half- 
stunned,  even  as  the  blow  was  struck,  hearing 
the  wild  uproar  of  clucking  and  shrieking 
laughter  that  arose  from  the  caves.  It  was  a 
great  joke  —  at  least  in  that  day;  and  right 
heartily  the  Folk  appreciated  it. 

Thus  was  I  received  into  the  horde.  Red- 
Eye  paid  no  further  attention  to  me,  and  I 
was  at  liberty  to  whimper  and  sob  to  my  heart's 
content.  Several  of  the  women  gathered  curi 
ously  about  me,  and  I  recognized  them.  I  had 
encountered  them  the  preceding  year  when  my 
mother  had  taken  me  to  the  hazelnut  canyons. 

But  they  quickly  left  me  alone,  being  re 
placed  by  a  dozen  curious  and  teasing  young- 


BEFORE   ADAM  61 

sters.  They  formed  a  circle  around  me,  point 
ing  their  fingers,  making  faces,  and  poking 
and  pinching  me.  I  was  frightened,  and  for  a 
time  I  endured  them,  then  anger  got  the  best 
of  me  and  I  sprang  tooth  and  nail  upon  the 
most  audacious  one  of  them  —  none  other  than 
Lop-Ear  himself.  I  have  so  named  him  be 
cause  he  could  prick  up  only  one  of  his  ears. 
The  other  ear  always  hung  limp  and  without 
movement.  Some  accident  had  injured  the 
muscles  and  deprived  him  of  the  use  of  it. 

He  closed  writh  me,  and  we  went  at  it  for  all 
the  world  like  a  couple  of  small  boys  fighting. 
We  scratched  and  bit,  pulled  hair,  clinched, 
and  threw  each  other  down.  I  remember  I 
succeeded  in  getting  on  him  what  in  my  college 
days  I  learned  was  called  a  half-Nelson.  This 
hold  gave  me  the  decided  advantage.  But  I 
did  not  enjoy  it  long.  He  twisted  up  one  leg, 
and  with  the  foot  (or  hind-hand)  made  so 
savage  an  onslaught  upon  my  abdomen  as  to 
threaten  to  disembowel  me.  I  had  to  release 
him  in  order  to  save  myself,  and  then  we  went 
at  it  again. 


62  BEFORE   ADAM 

Lop-Ear  was  a  year  older  than  I,  but  I  was 
several  times  angrier  than  he,  and  in  the  end 
he  took  to  his  heels.  I  chased  him  across  the 
open  and  down  a  run-way  to  the  river.  But 
he  was  better  acquainted  with  the  locality  and 
ran  along  the  edge  of  the  water  and  up  another 
run-way.  He  cut  diagonally  across  the  open 
space  and  dashed  into  a  wide-mouthed  cave. 

Before  I  knew  it,  I  had  plunged  after  him 
into  the  darkness.  The  next  moment  I  was 
badly  frightened.  I  had  never  been  in  a  cave 
before.  I  began  to  whimper  and  cry  out. 
Lop-Ear  chattered  mockingly  at  me,  and, 
springing  upon  me  unseen,  tumbled  me  over. 
He  did  not  risk  a  second  encounter,  however, 
and  took  himself  off.  I  was  between  him  and 
the  entrance,  and 
he  did  not  pass 
me;  yet  he 
seemed 


BEFORE   ADAM  63 

to  have  gone  away.  I  listened,  but  could  get 
no  clew  as  to  where  he  was.  This  puzzled 
me,  and  when  I  regained  the  outside  I  sat 
down  to  watch. 

He  never  came  out  of  the  entrance,  of  that 
I  was  certain ;  yet  at  the  end  of  several  minutes 
he  chuckled  at  my  elbow.  Again  I  ran  after 
him,  and  again  he  ran  into  the  cave;  but  this 
time  I  stopped  at  the  mouth.  I  dropped  back 
a  short  distance  and  watched.  He  did  not 
come  out,  yet,  as  before,  he  chuckled  at  my 
elbow  and  was  chased  by  me  a  third  time  into 
the  cave. 

This  performance  was  repeated  several  times. 
Then  I  followed  him  into  the  cave,  where 
I  searched  vainly  for  him.  I  was  curious. 
I  could  not  understand  how  he  eluded  me. 
Always  he  went  into  the  cave,  never  did  he 
come  out  of  it,  yet  always  did  he  arrive  there 
at  my  elbow  and  mock  me.  Thus  did  our 
fight  transform  itself  into  a  game  of  hide  and 
seek. 

All  afternoon,  with  occasional  intervals,  we 
kept  it  up,  and  a  playful,  friendly  spirit  arose 


64  BEFORE   ADAM 

between  us.  In  the  end,  he  did  not  run  away 
from  me,  and  we  sat  together  with  our  arms 
around  each  other.  A  little  later  he  disclosed 
the  mystery  of  the  wide-mouthed  cave.  Hold 
ing  me  by  the  hand  he  led  me  inside.  It  con 
nected  by  a  narrow  crevice  with  another  cave, 
and  it  was  through  this  that  we  regained  the 
open  air. 

We  were  now  good  friends.  When  the  other 
young  ones  gathered  around  to  tease,  he  joined 
with  me  in  attacking  them;  and  so  viciously 
did  we  behave  that  before  long  I  was  let  alone. 
Lop-Ear  made  me  acquainted  with  the  village. 
There  was  little  that  he  could  tell  me  of  con 
ditions  and  customs  —  he  had  not  the  necessary 
vocabulary;  but  by  observing  his  actions  I 
learned  much,  and  also  he  showed  me  places 
and  things. 

He  took  me  up  the  open  space,  between  the 
caves  and  the  river,  and  into  the  forest  beyond, 
where,  in  a  grassy  place  among  the  trees,  we 
made  a  meal  of  stringy-rooted  carrots.  After 
that  we  had  a  good  drink  at  the  river  and  started 
up  the  run-way  to  the  caves. 


BEFORE  ADAM 


It  was  in  the  run-way  that 
we     came     upon     Red-Eye 
again.      The    first   I    knew, 
Lop-Ear  had    shrunk    away 
to  one  side  and  was  crouch 
ing  low   against    the    bank. 
Naturally  and  involuntarily, 
I  imitated  him.    Then  it  was 
that   I    looked    to    see    the 
cause    of   his    fear.     It  was 
Red-Eye,    swaggering   down 
the  centre  of  the  run-way  and 
scowling  fiercely  with  his  inflamed 
eyes.     I  noticed  that  all  the  young 
sters  shrank  away  from  him  as  we 
had  done,  while  the  grown-ups  regarded 
him  with  wary  eyes  when  he  drew  near,  and 
stepped  aside  to  give  him  the  centre  of  the  path. 

As  twilight  came  on,  the  open  space  was 
deserted.  The  Folk  were  seeking  the  safety 
of  the  caves.  Lop-Ear  led  the  way  to  bed. 
High  up  the  bluff  we  climbed,  higher  than  all 
the  other  caves,  to  a  tiny  crevice  that  could  not 
be  seen  from  the  ground.  Into  this  Lop-Ear 


66  BEFORE   ADAM 

squeezed.  I  followed  with  difficulty,  so  narrow 
was  the  entrance,  and  found  myself  in  a  small 
rock-chamber.  It  was  very  low — not  more  than 
a  couple  of  feet  in  height,  and  possibly  three  feet 
by  four  in  width  and  length.  Here,  cuddled 
together  in  each  other's  arms,  we  slept  out 
the  night. 


CHAPTER   VI 

WHILE    the    more  courageous  of  the 
youngsters  played  in  and  out  of  the 
large-mouthed  caves,  I  early  learned 
that   such    caves  were   unoccupied.      No    one 
slept    in    them    at    night,      Only    the    crevice- 
mouthed   caves   were   used,   the   narrower  the 
mouth  the  better.     This  was  from  fear  of  the 
preying  animals  that  made  life  a  burden  to  us 
in  those  days  and  nights. 

The  first  morning,  after  my  night's  sleep  with 
Lop-Ear,  I  learned  the  advantage  of  the  nar 
row-mouthed  caves.  It  was  just  daylight  when 
old  Saber-Tooth,  the  tiger,  walked  into  the 
open  space.  Two  of  the  Folk  were  already  up. 
They  made  a  rush  for  it.  Whether  they  were 
panic-stricken,  or  whether  he  was  too  close  on 
their  heels  for  them  to  attempt  to  scramble  up 
the  bluff  to  the  crevices,  I  do  not  know;  but 
at  any  rate  they  dashed  into  the  wide-mouthed 

67 


68  BEFORE   ADAM 

cave  wherein  Lop-Ear  and  I  had  played  the 
afternoon  before. 

What  happened  inside  there  was  no  way  of 
telling,  but  it  is  fair  to  conclude  that  the  two 
Folk  slipped  through  the  connecting  crevice 
into  the  other  cave.  This  crevice  was  too  small 
to  allow  for  the  passage  of  Saber-Tooth,  and 
he  came  out  the  way  he  had  gone  in,  unsatis 
fied  and  angry.  It  was  evident  that  his  night's 
hunting  had  been  unsuccessful  and  that  he 
had  expected  to  make  a  meal  off*  of  us.  He 
caught  sight  of  the  two  Folk  at  the  other  cave- 
mouth  and  sprang  for  them.  Of  course,  they 
darted  through  the  passageway  into  the-  first 
cave.  He  emerged  angrier  than  ever  and 
snarling. 

Pandemonium  broke  loose  amongst  the  rest 
of  us.  All  up  and  down  the  great  bluff,  we 
crowded  the  crevices  and  outside  ledges,  and 
we  were  all  chattering  and  shrieking  in  a 
thousand  keys.  And  we  were  all  making  faces 
—  snarling  faces;  this  was  an  instinct  with  us. 
We  were  as  angry  as  Saber-Tooth,  though  our 
anger  was  allied  with  fear.  I  remember  that 


BEFORE   ADAM  69 

I  shrieked  and  made  faces  with  the  best  of  them. 
Not  only  did  they  set  the  example,  but  I  felt 
the  urge  from  within  me  to  do  the  same  things 
they  were  doing.  My  hair  was  bristling,  and 
I  was  convulsed  with  a  fierce,  unreasoning 
rage. 

For  some  time  old  Saber-Tooth  continued 
dashing  in  and  out  of  first  the  one  cave  and  then 
the  other.  But  the  two  Folk  merely  slipped 
back  and  forth  through  the  connecting  crevice 
and  eluded  him.  In  the  meantime  the  rest 
of  us  up  the  bluff  had  proceeded  to  action. 
Every  time  he  appeared  outside  we  pelted  him 
with  rocks.  At  first  we  merely  dropped  them 
on  him,  but  we  soon  began  to  whiz  them  down 
with  the  added  force  of  our  muscles. 

This  bombardment  drew  Saber-Tooth's  atten 
tion  to  us  and  made  him  angrier  than  ever. 
He  abandoned  his  pursuit  of  the  two  Folk 
and  sprang  up  the  bluff  toward  the  rest  of  us, 
clawing  at  the  crumbling  rock  and  snarling  as 
he  clawed  his  upward  way,  At  this  awful  sight, 
the  last  one  of  us  sought  refuge  inside  our  caves. 
I  know  this,  because  I  peeped  out  and  saw  the 


70  BEFORE   ADAM 

whole  bluff-side  deserted,  save  for  Saber- 
Tooth,  who  had  lost  his  footing  and  was  slid 
ing  and  falling  down. 

I  called  out  the  cry  of  encouragement,  and 
again  the  bluff  was  covered  by  the  screaming 
horde  and  the  stones  were  falling  faster  than 
ever.  Saber-Tooth  was  frantic  with  rage.  Time 
and  again  he  assaulted  the  bluff.  Once  he  even 
gained  the  first  crevice-entrances  before  he  fell 
back,  but  was  unable  to  force  his  way  inside. 
With  each  upward  rush  he  made,  waves  of 
fear  surged  over  us.  At  first,  at  such  times, 
most  of  us  dashed  inside;  but  some  remained 
outside  to  hammer  him  with  stones,  and  soon 
all  of  us  remained  outside  and  kept  up  the 
fusillade. 

Never  was  so  masterly  a  creature  so  com 
pletely  baffled.  It  hurt  his  pride  terribly,  thus 
to  be  outwitted  by  the  small  and  tender  Folk. 
He  stood  on  the  ground  and  looked  up  at  us, 
snarling,  lashing  his  tail,  snapping  at  the  stones 
that  fell  near  to  him.  Once  I  whizzed  down  a 
stone,  and  just  at  the  right  moment  he  looked 
up.  It  caught  him  full  on  the  end  of  his  nose, 


He  sprang  up  the  bluff,  snarling  as  he  clawed  his 
upward  way." 


h 

V 

fe 


BEFORE   ADAM  73 

and  he  went  straight  up  in  the  air,  all  four  feet 
of  him,  roaring  and  caterwauling,  what  of  the 
hurt  and  surprise. 

He  was  beaten  and  he  knew  it.  Recovering 
his  dignity,  he  stalked  out  solemnly  from  under 
the  rain  of  stones.  He  stopped  in  the  middle 
of  the  open  space  and  looked  wistfully  and 
hungrily  back  at  us.  He  hated  to  forego  the 
meal,  and  we  were  just  so  much  meat,  cornered 
but  inaccessible.  This  sight  of  him  started 
us  to  laughing.  We  laughed  derisively  and 
uproariously,  all  of  us.  Now  animals  do  not 
like  mockery.  To  be  laughed  at  makes  them 
angry.  And  in  such  fashion  our  laughter 
affected  Saber-Tooth.  He  turned  with  a  roar 
and  charged  the  bluff  again.  This  was  what 
we  wanted.  The  fight  had  become  a  game, 
and  we  took  huge  delight  in  pelting  him. 

But  this  attack  did  not  last  long.  He 
quickly  recovered  his  common  sense,  and 
besides,  our  missiles  were  shrewd  to  hurt. 
Vividly  do  I  recollect  the  vision  of  one  bulg 
ing  eye  of  his,  swollen  almost  shut  by  one  of 
the  stones  we  had  thrown.  And  vividly  do  I 


74 


BEFORE   ADAM 


retain  the  pic- 
he  stood  on 
of  the  forest 
had  finally 
He  was  look- 
us,  his  writh- 
clear  of  the  very 


ture  of  him  as 
the    edge 
whither  he 
retreated, 
ing  back  at 
ing  lips  lifted 
roots  of  his  huge 


fangs,  his  hair  bris-  tling  and  his  tail  lash 
ing.  He  gave  one  last  snarl  and  slid  from 
view  among  the  trees. 

And  then  such  a  chattering  as  went  up. 
We  swarmed  out  of  our  holes,  examining  the 
marks  his  claws  had  made  on  the  crumbling 
rock  of  the  bluff,  all  of  us  talking  at  once. 
One  of  the  two  Folk  who  had  been  caught  in 
the  double  cave  was  part-grown,  half  child 
and  half  youth.  They  had  come  out  proudly 
from  their  refuge,  and  we  surrounded  them  in 
an  admiring  crowd.  Then  the  young  fellow's 
mother  broke  through  and  fell  upon  him  in  a 
tremendous  rage,  boxing  his  ears,  pulling  his 
hair,  and  shrieking  like  a  demon.  She  was  a 
strapping  big  woman,  very  hairy,  and  the 
thrashing  she  gave  him  was  a  delight  to  the 


BEFORE   ADAM  75 

horde.  We  roared  with  laughter,  holding  on  to 
one  another  or  rolling  on  the  ground  in  our  glee. 

In  spite  of  the  reign  of  fear  under  which  we 
lived,  the  Folk  were  always  great  laughers. 
We  had  the  sense  of  humor.  Our  merriment 
was  Gargantuan.  It  was  never  restrained. 
There  was  nothing  half  way  about  it.  When 
a  thing  was  funny  we  were  convulsed  with 
appreciation  of  it,  and  the  simplest,  crudest 
things  were  funny  to  us.  Oh,  we  were  great 
laughers,  I  can  tell  you. 

The  way  we  had  treated  Saber-Tooth  was 
the  way  we  treated  all  animals  that  invaded 
the  village.  We  kept  our  run-ways  and  drink- 
ing-places  to  ourselves  by  making  life  miserable 
for  the  animals  that  trespassed  or  strayed  upon 
our  immediate  territory.  Even  the  fiercest 
hunting  animals  we  so  bedevilled  that  they 
learned  to  leave  our  places  alone.  We  were 
not  fighters  like  them;  we  were  cunning  and 
cowardly,  and  it  was  because  of  our  cunning 
and  cowardice,  and  our  inordinate  capacity 
for  fear,  that  we  survived  in  that  frightfully 
hostile  environment  of  the  Younger  World. 


76  BEFORE   ADAM 

Lop-Ear,  I  figure,  was  a  year  older  than  I. 
What  his  past  history  was  he  had  no  way  of 
telling  me,  but  as  I  never  saw  anything  of  his 
mother  I  believed  him  to  be  an  orphan.  After 
all,  fathers  did  not  count  in  our  horde.  Mar 
riage  was  as  yet  in  a  rude  state,  and  couples 
had  a  way  of  quarrelling  and  separating. 
Modern  man,  what  of  his  divorce  institution, 
does  the  same  thing  legally.  But  we  had  no 
laws.  Custom  was  all  we  went  by,  and  our 
custom  in  this  particular  matter  was  rather 
promiscuous. 

Nevertheless,  as  this  narrative  will  show 
later  on,  we  betrayed  glimmering  adumbra 
tions  of  the  monogamy  that  was  later  to  give 
power  to,  and  make  mighty,  such  tribes  as 
embraced  it.  Furthermore,  even  at  the  time 
I  was  born,  there  were  several  faithful  couples 
that  lived  in  the  trees  in  the  neighborhood  of 
my  mother.  Living  in  the  thick  of  the  horde 
did  not  conduce  to  monogamy.  It  was  for 
this  reason,  undoubtedly,  that  the  faithful 
couples  went  away  and  lived  by  themselves. 
Through  many  years  these  couples  stayed  to- 


BEFORE   ADAM  77 

gether,  though  when  the  man  or  woman  died 
or  was  eaten  the  survivor  invariably  found  a 
new  mate. 

There  was  one  thing  that  greatly  puzzled  me 
during  the  first  days  of  my  residence  in  the 
horde.  There  was  a  nameless  and  incommuni 
cable  fear  that  rested  upon  all.  At  first  it 
appeared  to  be  connected  wholly  with  direc 
tion.  The  horde  feared  the  northeast.  It 
lived  in  perpetual  apprehension  of  that  quarter 
of  the  compass.  And  every  individual  gazed 
more  frequently  and  with  greater  alarm  in 
that  direction  than  in  any  other. 

When  Lop-Ear  and  I  went  toward  the  north 
east  to  eat  the  stringy-rooted  carrots  that  at 
that  season  were  at  their  best,  he  became  un 
usually  timid.  He  was  content  to  eat  the 
leavings,  the  big  tough  carrots  and  the  little 
ropy  .ones,  rather  than  to  venture  a  short 
distance  farther  on  to  where  the  carrots  were 
as  yet  untouched.  When  I  so  ventured,  he 
scolded  me  and  quarrelled  with  me.  He  gave 
me  to  understand  that  in  that  direction  was 
some  horrible  danger,  but  just  what  the  horrible 


78  BEFORE   ADAM 

danger  was  his  paucity  of  language  would  not 
permit  him  to  say. 

Many  a  good  meal  I  got  in  this  fashion, 
while  he  scolded  and  chattered  vainly  at  me. 
I  could  not  understand.  I  kept  very  alert, 
but  I  could  see  no  danger.  I  calculated 
always  the  distance  between  myself  and  the 
nearest  tree,  and  knew  that  to 
that  haven  of  refuge  I  could 
out-foot  the  Tawny  One,  or 
old  Saber-Tooth,  did  one  or 
the  other  suddenly  appear. 

One  late  afternoon,  in  the 
village,  a  great  uproar  arose. 
The  horde  was  animated  with 
a  single  emotion,  that  of  fear. 
The  bluff-side  swarmed  with 
the  Folk,  all  gazing  and  point 
ing  into  the  northeast.  I  did 
not  know  what  it  was,  but  I  scrambled  all 
the  way  up  to  the  safety  of  my  own  high  little 
cave  before  ever  I  turned  around  to  see. 

And    then,   across  the  river,   away   into  the 
northeast,  I  saw  for  the  first  time  the  mystery  of 


BEFORE   ADAM  79 

smoke.  It  was  the  biggest  animal  I  had  ever  seen. 
I  thought  it  was  a  monster  snake,  up-ended,  rear 
ing  its  head  high  above  the  trees  and  swaying 
back  and  forth.  And  yet,  somehow,  I  seemed 
to  gather  from  the  conduct  of  the  Folk  that  the 
smoke  itself  was  not  the  danger.  They  appeared 
to  fear  it  as  the  token  of  something  else.  What 
this  something  else  was  I  was  unable  to  guess. 
Nor  could  they  tell  me.  Yet  I  was  soon  to  know, 
and  I  was  to  know  it  as  a  thing  more  terrible 
than  the  Tawny  One,  than  old  Saber-Tooth, 
than  the  snakes  themselves,  than  which  it  seemed 
there  could  be  no  things  more  terrible. 


CHAPTER  VII 

BROKEN-TOOTH  was  another  young 
ster  who  lived  by  himself.  His  mother 
lived  in  the  caves,  but  two  more  children 
had  come  after  him  and  he  had  been  thrust 
out  to  shift  for  himself.  We  had  witnessed  the 
performance  during  the  several  preceding  days, 
and  it  had  given  us  no  little  glee.  Broken- 
Tooth  did  not  want  to  go,  and  every  time  his 
mother  left  the  cave  he  sneaked  back  into  it. 
When  she  returned  and  found  him  there  her 
rages  were  delightful.  Half  the  horde  made  a 
practice  of  watching  for  these  moments.  First, 
from  within  the  cave,  would  come  her  scolding 
and  shrieking.  Then  we  could  hear  sounds  of 
the  thrashing  and  the  yelling  of  Broken-Tooth. 
About  this  time  the  two  younger  children  joined 
in.  And  finally,  like  the  eruption  of  a  minia 
ture  volcano,  Broken-Tooth  would  come  flying 
out. 

80 


BEFORE   ADAM  81 

At  the  end  of  several  days  his  leaving  home 
was  accomplished.  He  wailed  his  grief,  un 
heeded,  from  the  centre  of  the  open  space, 
for  at  least  half  an  hour,  and  then  came  to 
live  with  Lop-Ear  and  me.  Our  cave 
was  small,  but  with  squeez 
ing  there  was  room  for 
three.  I  have  no 
recollection  of 
Broken-Tooth 
spending  more 
than  one  night  with 
us,  so  the  accident 
must  have  happened 
right  away. 

It  came  in  the  middle  of 
the  day.  In  the  morning  we 
had  eaten  our  fill  of  the  carrots, 
and  then,  made  heedless  by  play,  we  had 
ventured  on  to  the  big  trees  just  beyond.  I 
cannot  understand  how  Lop-Ear  got  over  his 
habitual  caution,  but  it  must  have  been  the 
play.  We  were  having  a  great  time  playing 
tree  tag.  And  such  tag!  We  leaped  ten  or 


82  BEFORE   ADAM 

fifteen-foot  gaps  as  a  matter  of  course.  And  a 
twenty  or  twenty-five  foot  deliberate  drop  clear 
down  to  the  ground  was  nothing  to  us.  In 
fact,  I  am  almost  afraid  to  say  the  great  dis 
tances  we  dropped.  As  we  grew  older  and 
heavier  we  found  we  had  to  be  more  cautious  in 
dropping,  but  at  that  age  our  bodies  were  all 
strings  and  springs  and  we  could  do  anything. 

Broken-Tooth  displayed  remarkable  agility 
in  the  game.  He  was  "It"  less  frequently 
than  any  of  us,  and  in  the  course  of  the  game  he 
discovered  one  difficult  "slip"  that  neither  Lop- 
Ear  nor  I  was  able  to  accomplish.  To  be  truth 
ful,  we  were  afraid  to  attempt  it. 

When  we  were  "It,"  Broken-Tooth  always 
ran  out  to  the  end  of  a  lofty  branch  in  a  certain 
tree.  From  the  end  of  the  branch  to  the  ground 
it  must  have  been  seventy  feet,  and  nothing 
intervened  to  break  a  fall.  But  about  twenty 
feet  lower  down,  and  fully  fifteen  feet  out  from 
the  perpendicular,  was  the  thick  branch  of 
another  tree. 

As  we  ran  out  the  limb,  Broken-Tooth,  fac 
ing  us,  would  begin  teetering.  This  naturally 


BEFORE   ADAM  83 

impeded  our  progress;  but  there  was  more  in 
the  teetering  than  that.  He  teetered  with  his 
back  to  the  jump  he  was  to  make.  Just  as  we 
nearly  reached  him  he  would  let  go.  The  teeter 
ing  branch  was  like  a  spring-board.  It  threw 
him  far  out,  backward,  as  he  fell.  And  as  he 
fell  he  turned  around  sidewise  in  the  air  so  as 
to  face  the  other  branch  into  which  he  was  fall 
ing.  This  branch  bent  far  down  under  the 
impact,  and  sometimes  there  was  an  ominous 
crackling;  but  it  never  broke,  and  out  of  the 
leaves  was  always  to  be  seen  the  face  of  Broken- 
Tooth  grinning  triumphantly  up  at  us. 

I  was  "It"  the  last  time  Broken-Tooth  tried 
this.  He  had  gained  the  end  of  the  branch  and 
begun  his  teetering,  and  I  was  creeping  out  after 
him,  when  suddenly  there  came  a  low  warning 
cry  from  Lop-Ear.  I  looked  down  and  saw  him 
in  the  main  fork  of  the  tree  crouching  close 
against  the  trunk.  Instinctively  I  crouched 
down  upon  the  thick  limb.  Broken-Tooth 
stopped  teetering,  but  the  branch  would  not 
stop,  and  his  body  continued  bobbing  up  and 
down  with  the  rustling  leaves. 


84 


BEFORE   ADAM 


I  heard  the  crackle  of  a  dry  twig,  and  looking 
down  saw  my  first  Fire-Man.  He  was  creeping 
stealthily  along  on  the  ground  and  peering  up 
into  the  tree.  At  first  I  thought  he  was  a  wild 
animal,  because  he  wore  around  his  waist  and 
over  his  shoulders  a  ragged  piece  of  bearskin. 
And  then  I  saw  his  hands  and  feet,  and  more 
clearly  his  features.  He  was  very  much  like 
my  kind,  except  that  he  was  less  hairy  and  that 
his  feet  were  less  like  hands  than  ours.  In 
fact,  he  and  his  people,  as  I  was  later  to  know, 
were  far  less  hairy  than  we,  though  we,  in 
turn,  were  equally 
less  hairy  than  the 
Tree  People. 

It  came  to  me  in 
stantly,  as  I  looked 
at  him.  This  was 
the  terror  of  the 

t 

northeast,  of  which 
the  mystery  of  smoke 
was  a  token.     Yet  I 
was  puzzled.     Certainly 
he  was  nothing  of  which 


cHA«t4****rfS'<Ar/>«  out*..  V  j ;    j    u 


The  Fire- Man  peered  up  at  him  and  circled  around 
the  tree." 


BEFORE    ADAM  87 

to  be  afraid.  Red-Eye  or  any  of  our  strong 
men  would  have  been  more  than  a  match  for 
him.  He  was  old,  too,  wizened  with  age, 
and  the  hair  on  his  face  was  gray.  Also,  he 
limped  badly  with  one  leg.  There  was  no 
doubt  at  all  that  we  could  out-run  him  and 
out-climb  him.  He  could  never  catch  us,  that 
was  certain. 

But  he  carried  something  in  his  hand  that  I 
had  never  seen  before.  It  was  a  bow  and  arrow. 
But  at  that  time  a  bow  and  arrow  had  no  mean 
ing  for  me.  How  was  I  to  know  that  death 
lurked  in  that  bent  piece  of  wood  ?  But  Lop- 
Ear  knew.  He  had  evidently  seen  the  Fire 
People  before  and  knew  something  of  their  ways. 
The  Fire-Man  peered  up  at  him  and  circled 
around  the  tree.  And  around  the  main  trunk 
above  the  fork  Lop-Ear  circled  too,  keeping 
always  the  trunk  between  himself  and  the 
Fire-Man. 

The  latter  abruptly  reversed  his  circling. 
Lop-Ear,  caught  unawares,  also  hastily  reversed, 
but  did  not  win  the  protection  of  the  trunk 
until  after  the  Fire-Man  had  twanged  the  bow. 


88  BEFORE   ADAM 

I  saw  the  arrow  leap  up,  miss  Lop-Ear,  glance 
against  a  limb,  and  fall  back  to  the  ground.  I 
danced  up  and  down  on  my  lofty  perch  with 
delight.  It  was  a  game!  The  Fire-Man  was 
throwing  things  at  Lop-Ear  as  we  sometimes 
threw  things  at  one  another. 

The  game  continued  a  little  longer,  but  Lop- 
Ear  did  not  expose  himself  a  second  time.  Then 
the  Fire-Man  gave  it  up.  I  leaned  far  out  over 
my  horizontal  limb  and  chattered  down  at  him. 
I  wanted  to  play.  I  wanted  to  have  him  try 
to  hit  me  with  the  thing.  He  saw  me,  but 
ignored  me,  turning  his  attention  to  Broken- 
Tooth,  who  was  still  teetering  slightly  and  invol 
untarily  on  the  end  of  the  branch. 

The  first  arrow  leaped  upward.  Broken- 
Tooth  yelled  with  fright  and  pain.  It  had 
reached  its  mark.  This  put  a  new  complexion 
on  the  matter.  I  no  longer  cared  to  play,  but 
crouched  trembling  close  to  my  limb.  A  second 
arrow  and  a  third  soared  up,  missing  Broken- 
Tooth,  rustling  the  leaves  as  they  passed  through, 
arching  in  their  flight  and  returning  to  earth. 

The  Fire-Man  stretched  his  bow  again.     He 


BEFORE   ADAM  89 

shifted  his  position,  walking  away  several  steps, 
then  shifted  it  a  second  time.  The  bow-string 
twanged,  the  arrow  leaped  upward,  and  Broken- 
Tooth,  uttering  a  terrible  scream,  fell  off  the 
branch.  I  saw  him  as  he  went  down,  turning 
over  and  over,  all  arms  and  legs  it  seemed,  the 
shaft  of  the  arrow  projecting  from  his  chest 
and  appearing  and  disappearing  with  each  revo 
lution  of  his  body. 

Sheer  down,  screaming,  seventy  feet  he  fell, 
smashing  to  the  earth  with  an  audible  thud  and 
crunch,  his  body  rebounding  slightly  and  settling 
down  again.  Still  he  lived,  for  he  moved  and 
squirmed,  clawing  with  his  hands  and  feet.  I 
remember  the  Fire-Man  running  forward  with 
a  stone  and  hammering  him  on  the  head  .  .  . 
and  then  I  remember  no  more. 

Always,  during  my  childhood,  at  this  stage  of 
the  dream,  did  I  wake  up  screaming  with  fright 
—  to  find,  often,  my  mother  or  nurse,  anxious 
and  startled,  by  my  bedside,  passing  soothing 
hands  through  my  hair  and  telling  me  that  they 
were  there  and  that  there  was  nothing  to  fear. 

My  next  dream,  in  the  order  of  succession, 


9o 


BEFORE   ADAM 


begins  always  with  the  flight  of  Lop-Ear  and 
myself  through  the  forest.  The  Fire-Man  and 
Broken-Tooth  and  the  tree  of  the  tragedy  are 
gone.  Lop-Ear  and  I,  in  a  cautious  panic,  are 
fleeing  through  the  trees.  In  my  right  leg  is  a 
burning  pain;  and  from  the  flesh,  protruding 
head  and  shaft  from  either  side,  is  an  arrow  of 
the  Fire-Man.  Not  only  did  the  pull  and  strain 
of  it  pain  me  severely,  but  it  bothered  my  move 
ments  and  made  it  impossible  for  me  to  keep 
up  with  Lop-Ear. 

At  last  I  gave  up,  crouching  in 
the  secure  fork  of  a  tree.     Lop- 
Ear  went  right  on.     I  called  to 
him  —  most  plaintively,  I  remem 
ber;  and   he  stopped  and  looked 
back.     Then  he  returned  to  me, 
climbing  into  the  fork  and  ex 
amining  the  arrow.    He  tried 
to  pull  it  out,  but  one  way 
the  flesh  resisted  the  barbed 
head,  and  the  other  way  it  re 
sisted  the  feathered  shaft.    Also,  it 
hurt  grievously,  and  I  stopped  him. 


BEFORE   ADAM  91 

For  some  time  we  crouched  there,  Lop-Ear 
nervous  and  anxious  to  be  gone,  perpetually 
and  apprehensively  peering  this  way  and  that, 
and  myself  whimpering  softly  and  sobbing. 
Lop-Ear  was  plainly  in  a  funk,  and  yet  his  con 
duct  in  remaining  by  me,  in  spite  of  his  fear, 
I  take  as  a  foreshadowing  of  the  altruism  and 
comradeship  that  have  helped  make  man  the 
mightiest  of  the  animals. 

Once  again  Lop-Ear  tried  to  drag  the  arrow 
through  the  flesh,  and  I  angrily  stopped  him. 
Then  he  bent  down  and  began  gnawing  the  shaft 
of  the  arrow  with  his  teeth.  As  he  did  so  he 
held  the  arrow  firmly  in  both  hands  so  that  it 
would  not  play  about  in  the  wound,  and  at  the 
same  time  I  held  on  to  him.  I  often  meditate 
upon  this  scene  —  the  two  of  us,  half-grown 
cubs,  in  the  childhood  of  the  race,  and  the  one 
mastering  his  fear,  beating  down  his  selfish  im 
pulse  of  flight,  in  order  to  stand  by  and  succor 
the  other.  And  there  rises  up  before  me  all 
that  was  there  foreshadowed,  and  I  see  visions 
of  Damon  and  Pythias,  of  life-saving  crews  and 
Red  Cross  nurses,  of  martyrs  and  leaders  of 


92  BEFORE   ADAM 

forlorn  hopes,  of  Father  Damien,  and  of  the 
Christ  himself,  and  of  all  the  men  of  earth,  mighty 
of  stature,  whose  strength  may  trace  back  to  the 
elemental  loins  of  Lop-Ear  and  Big-Tooth  and 
other  dim  denizens  of  the  Younger  World. 

When  Lop-Ear  had  chewed  off  the  head  of  the 
arrow,  the  shaft  was  withdrawn  easily  enough. 
I  started  to  go  on,  but  this  time  it  was  he  that 
stopped  me.  My  leg  was  bleeding  profusely. 
Some  of  the  smaller  veins  had  doubtless  been 
ruptured.  Running  out  to  the  end  of  a  branch, 
Lop-Ear  gathered  a  handful  of  green  leaves. 
These  he  stuffed  into  the  wound.  They  accom 
plished  the  purpose,  for  the  bleeding  soon 
stopped.  Then  we  went  on  together,  back  to 
the  safety  of  the  caves. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WELL  do  I  remember  that  first  winter 
after  I  left  home.    I  have  long  dreams 
of  sitting  shivering  in  the  cold.    Lop- 
Ear  and  I  sit  close  together,  with  our  arms  and 
legs    about    each    other,    blue-faced   and   with 
chattering  teeth.     It  got  particularly  crisp  along 
toward  morning.     In  those  chill  early  hours  we 
slept  little,  huddling  together  in  numb  misery 
and  waiting  for  the  sunrise  in  order  to  get  warm. 

o  o 

When  we  went  outside  there  was  a  crackle  of 
frost  under  foot.  One  morning  we  discovered 
ice  on  the  surface  of  the  quiet  water  in  the  eddy 
where  was  the  drinking-place,  and  there  was  a 
great  How-do-you-do  about  it.  Old  Marrow- 
Bone  was  the  oldest  member  of  the  horde,  and  he 
had  never  seen  anything  like  it  before.  I  re 
member  the  worried,  plaintive  look  that  came 
into  his  eyes  as  he  examined  the  ice.  (This 
plaintive  look  always  came  into  our  eyes  when 

93 


94  BEFORE   ADAM 

we  did  not  understand  a  thing,  or  when  we  felt 
the  prod  of  some  vague  and  inexpressible  de 
sire.)  Red-Eye,  too,  when  he  investigated  the  ice, 
looked  bleak  and  plaintive,  and  stared  across  the 
river  into  the  northeast,  as  though  in  some  way 
he  connected  the  Fire  People  with  this  latest 
happening. 

But  we  found  ice  only  on  that  one  morning, 
and  that  was  the  coldest  winter  we  experienced. 
I  have  no  memory  of  other  winters  when  it  was 
so  cold.  I  have  often  thought  that  that  cold 
winter  was  a  fore-runner  of  the  countless  cold 
winters  to  come,  as  the  ice-sheet  from  farther 
north  crept  down  over  the  face  of  the  land.  But 
we  never  saw  that  ice-sheet.  Many  generations 
must  have  passed  away  before  the  descendants 
of  the  horde  migrated  south,  or  remained  and 
adapted  themselves  to  the  changed  conditions. 

Life  was  hit  or  miss  and  happy-go-lucky  with 
us.  Little  was  ever  planned,  and  less  was  exe 
cuted.  We  ate  when  we  were  hungry,  drank 
when  we  were  thirsty,  avoided  our  carnivorous 
enemies,  took  shelter  in  the  caves  at  night,  and 
for  the  rest  just  sort  of  played  along  through  life. 


BEFORE   ADAM  95 

We  were  very  curious,  easily  amused,  and  full 
of  tricks  and  pranks.  There  was  no  seriousness 
about  us,  except  when  we  were  in  danger  or  were 
angry,  in  which  cases  the  one  was  quickly  for 
gotten  and  the  other  as  quickly  got  over. 

We  were  inconsecutive,  illogical,  and  inconse 
quential.  We  had  no  steadfastness  of  purpose, 
and  it  was  here  that  the  Fire  People  were  ahead 
of  us.  They  possessed  all  these  things  of  which 
we  possessed  so  little.  Occasionally,  however, 
especially  in  the  realm  of  the  emotions,  we  were 
capable  of  long-cherished  purpose.  The  faith 
fulness  of  the  monogamic  couples  I  have  referred 
to  may  be  explained  as  a  matter  of  habit;  but 
my  long  desire  for  the  Swift  One  cannot  be  so 
explained,  any  more  than  can  be  explained  the 
undying  enmity  between  me  and  Red-Eye. 

But  it  was  our  inconsequentiality  and  stu 
pidity  that  especially  distresses  me  when  I  look 
back  upon  that  life  in  the  long  ago.  Once  I 
found  a  broken  gourd  which  happened  to  lie 
right  side  up  and  which  had  been  filled  with 
the  rain.  The  water  was  sweet,  and  I  drank  it. 
I  even  took  the  gourd  down  to  the  stream  and 


96  BEFORE   ADAM 

filled  it  with  more  water,  some  of  which  I  drank 
and  some  of  which  I  poured  over  Lop-Ear. 
And  then  I  threw  the  gourd  away.  It  never 
entered  my  head  to  fill  the  gourd  with  water  and 
carry  it  into  my  cave.  Yet  often  I  was  thirsty 
at  night,  especially  after  eating  wild  onions  and 
watercress,  and  no  one  ever  dared  leave  the 
caves  at  night  for  a  drink. 

a  while.  But  it  l^WA^W'  was  a  plaything, 
nothing  more.  And  yet,  it  was  not  long  after 
this  that  the  using  of  gourds  for  storing  water 
became  the  general  practice  of  the  horde.  But 
I  was  not  the  inventor.  The  honor  was  due 
to  old  Marrow-Bone,  and  it  is  fair  to  assume 
that  it  was  the  necessity  of  his  great  age  that 
brought  about  the  innovation. 

At  any  rate,  the  first  member  of  the  horde 
to  use  gourds  was  Marrow-Bone.     He  kept  a 


BEFORE   ADAM  97 

supply  of  drinking-water  in  his  cave,  which  cave 
belonged  to  his  son,  the  Hairless  One,  who  per 
mitted  him  to  occupy  a  corner  of  it.  We  used  to 
see  Marrow-Bone  filling  his  gourd  at  the  drink- 
ing-place  and  carrying  it  carefully  up  to  his  cave. 
Imitation  was  strong  in  the  Folk,  and  first  one, 
and  then  another  and  another,  procured  a  gourd 
and  used  it  in  similar  fashion,  until  it  was  a 
general  practice  with  all  of  us  so  to  store 
water. 

Sometimes  old  Marrow-Bone  had  sick  spells 
and  was  unable  to  leave  the  cave.  Then  it  was 
that  the  Hairless  One  filled  the  gourd  for  him. 
A  little  later,  the  Hairless  One  deputed  the  task 
to  Long-Lip,  his  son.  And  after  that,  even 
when  Marrow-Bone  was  well  again,  Long-Lip 
continued  carrying  water  for  him.  By  and  by,, 
except  on  unusual  occasions,  the  men  never 
carried  any  water  at  all,  leaving  the  task  to  the 
women  and  larger  children.  Lop-Ear  and  I 
were  independent.  We  carried  water  only  for 
ourselves,  and  we  often  mocked  the  young  water- 
carriers  when  they  were  called  away  from  play 
to  fill  the  gourds. 


98  BEFORE   ADAM 

Progress  was  slow  with  us.  We  played 
through  life,  even  the  adults,  much  in  the 
same  way  that  children  play,  and  we  played  as 
none  of  the  other  animals  played.  What  little 
we  learned,  was  usually  in  the  course  of  play, 
and  was  due  to  our  curiosity  and  keenness  of 
appreciation.  For  that  matter,  the  one  big 
invention  of  the  horde,  during  the  time  I  lived 
with  it,  was  the  use  of  gourds.  At  first  we  stored 
only  water  in  the  gourds  —  in  imitation  of  old 
Marrow-Bone. 

But  one  day  some  one  of  the  women  —  I  do 
not  know  which  one  —  filled  a  gourd  with  black 
berries  and  carried  it  to  her  cave.  In  no  time 
all  the  women  were  carrying  berries  and  nuts  and 
roots  in  the  gourds.  The  idea,  once  started, 
had  to  go  on.  Another  evolution  of  the  carry 
ing-receptacle  was  due  to  the  women.  With 
out  doubt,  some  woman's  gourd  was  too  small, 
or  else  she  had  forgotten  her  gourd ;  but  be  that 
as  it  may,  she  bent  two  great  leaves  together, 
pinning  the  seams  with  twigs,  and  carried  home 
a  bigger  quantity  of  berries  than  could  have 
been  contained  in  the  largest  gourd. 


BEFORE   ADAM  99 

So  far  we  got,  and  no  farther,  in  the  trans 
portation  of  supplies  during  the  years  I  lived 
with  the  Folk.  It  never  entered  anybody's 
head  to  weave  a  basket  out  of  willow-withes. 
Sometimes  the  men  and  women  tied  tough  vines 
about  the  bundles  of  ferns  and  branches  that 
they  carried  to  the  caves  to  sleep  upon.  Possi 
bly  in  ten  or  twenty  generations  we  might 
have  worked  up  to  the  weaving  of  baskets. 
And  of  this,  one  thing  is  sure :  if  once  we  wove 
withes  into  baskets,  the  next  and  inevitable 
step  would  have  been  the  weaving  of  cloth. 
Clothes  would  have  followed,  and  with  covering 
our  nakedness  would  have  come  modesty. 

Thus  was  momentum  gained  in  the  Younger 
World.  But  we  were  without  this  momentum. 
We  were  just  getting  started,  and  we  could  not 
go  far  in  a  single  generation.  We  were  without 
weapons,  without  fire,  and  in  the  raw  beginnings 
of  speech.  The  device  of  writing  lay  so  far  in 
the  future  that  I  am  appalled  when  I  think  of  it. 

Even  I  was  once  on  the  verge  of  a  great  dis 
covery.  To  show  you  how  fortuitous  was  de 
velopment  in  those  days  let  me  state  that  had  it 


ioo  BEFORE   ADAM 

not  been  for  the  gluttony  of  Lop-Ear  I  might 
have  brought  about  the  domestication  of  the 
dog.  And  this  was  something  that  the  Fire 
People  who  lived  to  the  northeast  had  not  yet 
achieved.  They  were  without  dogs;  this  I 
knew  from  observation.  But  let  me  tell  you 
how  Lop-Ear's  gluttony  possibly  set  back  our 
social  development  many  generations. 

Well  to  the  west  of  our  caves  was  a  great 
swamp,  but  to  the  south  lay  a  stretch  of  low, 
rocky  hills.  These  were  little  frequented  for 
two  reasons.  First  of  all,  there  was  no  food 
there  of  the  kind  we  ate ;  and  next,  those  rocky 
hills  were  filled  with  the  lairs  of  carnivorous 
beasts. 

But  Lop-Ear  and  I  strayed  over  to  the  hills 
one  day.  We  would  not  have  strayed  had  we 
not  been  teasing  a  tiger.  Please  do  not  laugh. 
It  was  old  Saber-Tooth  himself.  We  were 
perfectly  safe.  We  chanced  upon  him  in  the 
forest,  early  in  the  morning,  and  from  the  safety 
of  the  branches  overhead  we  chattered  down  at 
him  our  dislike  and  hatred.  And  from  branch 
to  branch,  and  from  tree  to  tree,  we  followed 


BEFORE  ADAM  ;  101  , 

overhead,  making  an  infernal  row  and  warning 
all  the  forest-dwellers  that  old  Saber-Tooth  was 
coming. 

We  spoiled  his  hunting  for  him,  anyway.  And 
we  made  him  good  and  angry.  He  snarled 
at  us  and  lashed  his  tail,  and  sometimes  he 
paused  and  stared  up  at  us  quietly  for  a  long 
time,  as  if  debating  in  his  mind  some  way  by 
which  he  could  get  hold  of  us.  But  we  only 
laughed  and  pelted  him  with  twigs  and  the  ends 
of  branches. 

This  tiger-baiting  was  common  sport  among 
the  folk.  Sometimes  half  the  horde  would  fol 
low  from  overhead  a  tiger  or  lion  that  had  ven 
tured  out  in  the  daytime.  It  was  our  revenge; 
for  more  than  one  member  of  the  horde,  caught 
unexpectedly,  had  gone  the  way  of  the  tiger's 
belly  or  the  lion's.  Also,  by  such  ordeals  of 
helplessness  and  shame,  we  taught  the  hunt 
ing  animals  to  some  extent  to  keep  out  of  our 
territory.  And 
then  it  was 
funny.  It  was 
a  great  game. 


7C2  ;  ,  BEFORE   ADAM 

And  so  Lop-Ear  and  I  had  chased  Saber- 
Tooth  across  three  miles  of  forest.  Toward 
the  last  he  put  his  tail  between  his  legs  and  fled 
from  our  gibing  like  a  beaten  cur.  We  did  our 
best  to  keep  up  with  him;  but  when  we  reached 
the  edge  of  the  forest  he  was  no  more  than  a 
streak  in  the  distance. 

I  don't  know  what  prompted  us,  unless  it 
was  curiosity;  but  after  playing  around  awhile, 
Lop-Ear  and  I  ventured  across  the  open  ground 
to  the  edge  of  the  rocky  hills.  We  did  not  go 
far.  Possibly  at  no  time  were  we  more  than  a 
hundred  yards  from  the  trees.  Coming  around 
a  sharp  corner  of  rock  (we  went  very  carefully, 
because  we  did  not  know  what  we  might  en 
counter),  we  came  upon  three  puppies  playing 
in  the  sun. 

They  did  not  see  us,  and  we  watched  them 
for  some  time.  They  were  wild  dogs.  In  the 
rock-wall  was  a  horizontal  fissure  —  evidently 
the  lair  where  their  mother  had  left  them, 
and  where  they  should  have  remained  had  they 
been  obedient.  But  the  growing  life,  that .  in 
Lop-Ear  and  me  had  impelled  us  to  venture 


BEFORE    ADAM 


103 


away  from  the  forest,  had  driven  the  puppies 
out  of  the  cave  to  frolic.  I  know  how  their 
mother  would  have  punished  them  had  she 
caught  them. 

But  it  was  Lop-Ear  and  I  who  caught  them. 
He  looked  at  me,  and  then  we  made  a  dash 
for  it.  The  puppies 
knew  no  place  to  run 
except  into  the  lair,  and 
we  headed  them  off. 
One  rushed  between  my 
legs.  I  squatted  and 
grabbed  him.  He  sank 
his  sharp  little  teeth  into 
my  arm,  and  I  dropped 
him  in  the  suddenness 
of  the  hurt  and  surprise. 
The  next  moment  he 
had  scurried  inside. 

Lop  -  Ear,  struggling 
with  the  second  puppy, 
scowled  at  me  and  in 
timated  by  a  vari- 

f      \ 

ety  of  sounds  the       £^ 

A* 


io4  BEFORE   ADAM 

different  kinds  of  a  fool  and  a  bungler  that  I 
was.  This  made  me  ashamed  and  spurred  me 
to  valor.  I  grabbed  the  remaining  puppy  by 
the  tail.  He  got  his  teeth  into  me  once,  and 
then  I  got  him  by  the  nape  of  the  neck. 
Lop-Ear  and  I  sat  down,  and  held  the  puppies 
up,  and  looked  at  them,  and  laughed. 

They  were  snarling  and  yelping  and  crying. 
Lop-Ear  started  suddenly.  He  thought  he 
had  heard  something.  We  looked  at  each 
other  in  fear,  realizing  the  danger  of  our  position. 
The  one  thing  that  made  animals  raging  demons 
was  tampering  with  their  young.  And  these 
puppies  that  made  such  a  racket  belonged  to 
the  wild  dogs.  Well  we  knew  them,  running 
in  packs,  the  terror  of  the  grass-eating  animals. 
We  had  watched  them  following  the  herds  of 
cattle  and  bison  and  dragging  down  the  calves, 
the  aged,  and  the  sick.  We  had  been  chased 
by  them  ourselves,  more  than  once.  I  had  seen 
one  of  the  Folk,  a  woman,  run  down  by  them 
and  caught  just  as  she  reached  the  shelter  of 
the  woods.  Had  she  not  been  tired  out  by  the 
run,  she  might  have  made  it  into  a  tree.  She 


"  Well  we  knew  them,  running  in  packs,  the  terror  of 
the  grass-eating  animals." 


BEFORE   ADAM 


107 


tried,  and  slipped,  and  fell  back.     They  made 
short  work  of  her. 

We  did  not  stare  at  each  other  longer  than 
a  moment.  Keeping  tight  hold  of  our  prizes, 
we  ran  for  the  woods.  Once  in  the  security  of 
a  tall  tree,  we  held  up  the  puppies  and  laughed 
again.  You  see,  we  had  to  have  our  laugh  out, 
no  matter  what  happened. 

And  then  began  one  of  the  hardest  tasks  I 
ever  attempted.  We  started  to  carry  the  puppies 
to  our  cave.  Instead  of  using  our  hands  for 
climbing,  most  of  the  time  they  were  occupied 
with  holding  our  squirming  captives.  Once 
we  tried  to  walk  on  the  ground,  but  were 
treed  by  a  miserable  hyena,  who  followed 
along  underneath.  He  was  a  wise  hyena. 

Lop-Ear  got  an  idea.  He  remembered  how 
we  tied  up  bundles  of  leaves 
to  carry  home  for  beds. 
Breaking  off  some  tough 
vines,  he  tied  his  puppy's 
legs  together,  and  then,  with 
another  piece  of  vine  passed 
around  his  neck,  slung  the 


io8  BEFORE   ADAM 

puppy  on  his  back.  This  left  him  with  hands 
and  feet  free  to  climb.  He  was  jubilant,  and 
did  not  wait  for  me  to  finish  tying  my  puppy's 
legs,  but  started  on.  There  was  one  difficulty, 
however.  The  puppy  wouldn't  stay  slung  on 
Lop-Ear's  back.  It  swung  around  to  the  side 
and  then  on  in  front.  Its  teeth  were  not  tied, 
and  the  next  thing  it  did  was  to  sink  its  teeth 
into  Lop-Ear's  soft  and  unprotected  stomach. 
He  let  out  a  scream,  nearly  fell,  and  clutched 
a  branch  violently  with  both  hands  to  save 
himself.  The  vine  around  his  neck  broke,  and 
the  puppy,  its  four  legs  still  tied,  dropped  to 
the  ground.  The  hyena  proceeded  to  dine. 

Lop-Ear  was  disgusted  and  angry.  He 
abused  the  hyena,  and  then  went  off  alone 
through  the  trees.  I  had  no  reason  that  I 
knew  for  wanting  to  carry  the  puppy  to  the  cave, 
except  that  I  wanted  to;  and  I  stayed  by  my 
task.  I  made  the  work  a  great  deal  easier  by 
elaborating  on  Lop-Ear's  idea.  Not  only  did 
I  tie  the  puppy's  legs,  but  I  thrust  a  stick 
through  his  jaws  and  tied  them  together  se 
curely. 


BEFORE   ADAM  109 

At  last  I  got  the  puppy  home.  I  imagine 
I  had  more  pertinacity  than  the  average  Folk, 
or  else  I  should  not  have  succeeded.  They 
laughed  at  me  when  they  saw  me  lugging  the 
puppy  up  to  my  high  little  cave,  but  I  did  not 
mind.  Success  crowned  my  efforts,  and  there 
was  the  puppy.  He  was  a  plaything  such  as 
none  of  the  Folk  possessed.  He  learned  rapidly. 
When  I  played  with  him  and  he  bit  me,  I 
boxed  his  ears,  and  then  he  did  not  try  again 
to  bite  for  a  long  time. 

I  was  quite  taken  up  with  him.  He  was 
something  new,  and  it  was  a  characteristic  of 
the  Folk  to  like  new  things.  When  I  saw  that 
he  refused  fruits  and  vegetables,  I  caught 
birds  for  him  and  squirrels  and  young  rabbits. 
(We  Folk  were  meat-eaters,  as  well  as  vegeta 
rians,  and  we  were  adept  at  catchingsmall  game.) 
The  puppy  ate  the  meat  and  thrived.  As  well 
as  I  can  estimate,  I  must  have  had  him  over  a 
week.  And  then,  coming  back  to  the  cave  one 
day  with  a  nestful  of  young-hatched  pheasants, 
I  found  Lop-Ear  had  killed  the  puppy  and  was 
just  beginning  to  eat  him.  I  sprang  for  Lop- 


i  io  BEFORE  ADAM 

Ear,  —  the  cave  was  small,  —  and  we  went  at 
it  tooth  and  nail. 

And  thus,  in  a  fight,  ended  one  of  the  earliest 
attempts  to  domesticate  the  dog.  We  pulled 
hair  out  in  handfuls,  and  scratched  and  bit  and 
gouged.  Then  we  sulked  and  made  up.  After 
that  we  ate  the  puppy.  Raw  ?  Yes.  We 
had  not  yet  discovered  fire.  Our  evolution 
into  cooking  animals  lay  in  the  tight-rolled 
scroll  of  the  future. 


CHAPTER  IX 

RED-EYE  was  an  atavism.  He  was  the 
great  discordant  element  in  our  horde. 
He  was  more  primitive  than  any  of  us. 
He  did  not  belong  with  us,  yet  we  were  still  so 
primitive  ourselves  that  we  were  incapable  of  a 
cooperative  effort  strong  enough  to  kill  him  or 
cast  him  out.  Rude  as  was  our  social  organi 
zation,  he  was,  nevertheless,  too  rude  to  live 
in  it.  He  tended  always  to  destroy  the  horde 
by  his  unsocial  acts.  He  was  really  a  reversion 
to  an  earlier  type,  and  his  place  was  with  the 
Tree  People  rather  than  with  us  who  were  in 
the  process  of  becoming  men. 

He  was  a  monster  of  cruelty,  which  is  saying 
a  great  deal  in  that  day.  He  beat  his  wives  — 
not  that  he  ever  had  more  than  one  wife  at  a 
time,  but  that  he  was  married  many  times. 
It  was  impossible  for  any  woman  to  live  with 
him,  and  yet  they  did  live  with  him,  out  of 
compulsion.  There  was  no  gainsaying  him. 

in 


112 


BEFORE   ADAM 


No  man 
was  strong 
enough    to 
stand     against 
him. 

Often  do  I  have  visions  of  the  quiet  hour 
before  the  twilight.  From  drinking-place  and 
carrot  patch  and  berry  swamp  the  Folk  are 


BEFORE   ADAM  113 

trooping  into  the  open  space  before  the  caves. 
They  dare  linger  no  later  than  this,  for  the 
dreadful  darkness  is  approaching,  in  which  the 
world  is  given  over  to  the  carnage  of  the  hunting 
animals,  while  the  fore-runners  of  man  hide 
tremblingly  in  their  holes. 

There  yet  remain  to  us  a  few  minutes  before 
we  climb  to  our  caves.  We  are  tired  from  the 
play  of  the  day,  and  the  sounds  we  make  are 
subdued.  Even  the  cubs,  still  greedy  for  fun 
and  antics,  play  with  restraint.  The  wind  from 
the  sea  has  died  down,  and  the  shadows  are 
lengthening  with  the  last  of  the  sun's  descent. 
And  then,  suddenly,  from  Red-Eye's  cave, 
breaks  a  wild  screaming  and  the  sound  of 
blows.  He  is  beating  his  wife. 

At  first  an  awed  silence  comes  upon  us. 
But  as  the  blows  and  screams  continue  we 
break  out  into  an  insane  gibbering  of  helpless 
rage.  It  is  plain  that  the  men  resent  Red- 
Eye's  actions,  but  they  are  too  afraid  of  him. 
The  blows  cease,  and  a  low  groaning  dies 
away,  while  we  chatter  among  ourselves  and 
the  sad  twilight  creeps  upon  us. 


ii4  BEFORE   ADAM 

We,  to  whom  most  happenings  were  jokes, 
never  laughed  during  Red-Eye's  wife-beatings. 
We  knew  too  well  the  tragedy  of  them.  On 
more  than  one  morning,  at  the  base  of  the 
cliff,  did  we  find  the  body  of  his  latest  wife. 
He  had  tossed  her  there,  after  she  had  died, 
from  his  cave-mouth.  He  never  buried  his 
dead.  The  task  of  carrying  away  the  bodies, 
that  else  would  have  polluted  our  abiding-place, 
he  left  to  the  horde.  We  usually  flung  them 
into  the  river  below  the  last  drinking-place. 

Not  alone  did  Red-Eye  murder  his  wives, 
but  he  also  murdered  for  his  wives,  in  order  to 
get  them.  When  he  wanted  a  new  wife  and 
selected  the  wife  of  another  man,  he  promptly 
killed  that  man.  Two  of  these  murders  I  saw 
myself.  The  whole  horde  knew,  but  could  do 
nothing.  We  had  not  yet  developed  any  govern 
ment,  to  speak  of,  inside  the  horde.  We  had 
certain  customs  and  visited  our  wrath  upon  the 
unlucky  ones  who  violated  those  customs.  Thus, 
for  example,  the  individual  who  defiled  a  drink- 
ing-place  would  be  attacked  by  every  onlooker, 
while  one  who  deliberately  gave  a  false  alarm 


BEFORE   ADAM  115 

was  the  recipient  of  much  rough  usage  at  our 
hands.  But  Red-Eye  walked  rough-shod  over 
all  our  customs,  and  we  so  feared  him  that  we 
were  incapable  of  the  collective  action  neces 
sary  to  punish  him. 

It  was  during  the  sixth  winter  in  our  cave 
that  Lop-Ear  and  I  discovered  that  we  were 
really  growing  up.  From  the  first  it  had  been  a 
squeeze  to  get  in  through  the  entrance-crevice. 
This  had  had  its  advantages,  however.  It 
had  prevented  the  larger  Folk  from  taking 
our  cave  away  from  us.  And  it  was  a  most 
desirable  cave,  the  highest  on  the  blufF,  the 
safest,  and  in  winter  the  smallest  and  warmest. 

To  show  the  stage  of  the  mental  development 
of  the  Folk,  I  may  state  that  it  would  have  been 
a  simple  thing  for  some  of  them  to  have  driven 
us  out  and  enlarged  the  crevice-opening.  But 
they  never  thought  of  it.  Lop-Ear  and  I  did 
not  think  of  it  either  until  our  increasing  size 
compelled  us  to  make  an  enlargement.  This 
occurred  when  summer  was  well  along  and  we 
were  fat  with  better  forage.  We  worked  at  the 
crevice  in  spells,  when  the  fancy  struck  us. 


BEFORE   ADAM 


At  first  we  dug  the  crum 
bling  rocks  away  with  our  fin 
gers,  until  our  nails  got  sore, 
when  I  accidentally  stumbled 
upon  the  idea  of  using  a  piece 
of  wood  on  the  rock.  This 
worked  well.  Also  it  worked 
woe.  One  morning  early,  we 
had  scratched  out  of  the  wall 
quite  a  heap  of  fragments.  I 
gave  the  heap  a  shove  over 
the  lip  of  the  entrance. 
The  next  moment  there 
came  up  from  below  a 
howl  of  rage.  There 
was  no  need  to  look.  We  knew  the  voice 
only  too  well.  The  rubbish  had  descended 
upon  Red-Eye. 

We  crouched  down  in  the  cave  in  consterna 
tion.  A  minute  later  he  was  at  the  entrance, 
peering  in  at  us  with  his  inflamed  eyes  and 
raging  like  a  demon.  But  he  was  too  large. 
He  could  not  get  in  to  us.  Suddenly  he  went 
away.  This  was  suspicious.  By  all  we  knew 


BEFORE   ADAM  117 

of  Folk  nature  he  should  have  remained  and 
had  out  his  rage.  I  crept  to  the  entrance 
and  peeped  down.  I  could  see  him  just  begin 
ning  to  mount  the  bluff  again.  In  one  hand  he 
carried  a  long  stick.  Before  I  could  divine  his 
plan,  he  was  back  at  the  entrance  and  savagely 
jabbing  the  stick  in  at  us. 

His  thrusts  were  prodigious.  They  could 
have  disembowelled  us.  We  shrank  back 
against  the  side-walls,  where  we  were  almost 
out  of  range.  But  by  industrious  poking  he 
got  us  now  and  again  —  cruel,  scraping  jabs 
with  the  end  of  the  stick  that  raked  off  the  hide 
and  hair.  When  we  screamed  with  the  hurt,  he 
roared  his  satisfaction  and  jabbed  the  harder. 

I  began  to  grow  angry.  I  had  a  temper  of 
my  own  in  those  days,  and  pretty  considerable 
courage,  too,  albeit  it  was  largely  the  courage  of 
the  cornered  rat.  I  caught  hold  of  the  stick 
with  my  hands,  but  such  was  his  strength  that 
he  jerked  me  into  the  crevice.  He  reached  for 
me  with  his  long  arm,  and  his  nails  tore  my  flesh 
as  I  leaped  back  from  the  clutch  and  gained 
the  comparative  safety  of  the  side-wall. 


ii8  BEFORE   ADAM 

He  began  poking  again,  and  caught  me  a  pain 
ful  blow  on  the  shoulder.  Beyond  shivering 
with  fright  and  yelling  when  he  was  hit,  Lop- 
Ear  did  nothing.  I  looked  for  a  stick  with 
which  to  jab  back,  but  found  only  the  end  of  a 
branch,  an  inch  through  and  a  foot  long.  I 
threw  this  at  Red-Eye.  It  did  no  damage, 
though  he  howled  with  a  sudden  increase  of 
rage  at  my  daring  to  strike  back.  He  began 
jabbing  furiously.  I  found  a  fragment  of  rock 
and  threw  it  at  him,  striking  him  on  the  chest. 

This  emboldened  me,  and,  besides,  I  was  now 
as  angry  as  he,  and  had  lost  all  fear.  I  ripped 
a  fragment  of  rock  from  the  wall.  The  piece 
must  have  weighed  two  or  three  pounds.  With 
all  my  strength  I  slammed  it  full  into  Red-Eye's 
face.  It  nearly  finished  him.  He  staggered 
backward,  dropping  his  stick,  and  almost  fell 
off  the  cliff. 

He  was  a  ferocious  sight.  His  face  was  cov 
ered  with  blood,  and  he  was  snarling  and 
gnashing  his  fangs  like  a  wild  boar.  He  wiped 
the  blood  from  his  eyes,  caught  sight  of  me, 
and  roared  with  fury.  His  stick  was  gone,  so 


BEFORE   ADAM  119 

he  began  ripping  out  chunks  of  crumbling  rock 
and  throwing  them  in  at  me.  This  supplied 
me  with  ammunition.  I  gave  him  as  good  as 
he  sent,  and  better;  for  he  presented  a  good 
target,  while  he  caught  only  glimpses  of  me  as 
I  snuggled  against  the  side-wall. 

Suddenly  he  disappeared  again.  From  the 
lip  of  the  cave  I  saw  him  descending.  All 
the  horde  had  gathered  outside  and  in  awed 
silence  was  looking  on.  As  he  descended,  the 
more  timid  ones  scurried  for  their  caves.  I 
could  see  old  Marrow-Bone  tottering  along  as 
fast  as  he  could.  Red-Eye  sprang  out  from  the 
wall  and  finished  the  last  twenty  feet  through 
the  air.  He  landed  alongside  a  mother  who 
was  just  beginning  the  ascent.  She  screamed 
with  fear,  and  the  two-year-old  child  that  was 
clinging  to  her  released  its  grip  and  rolled  at 
Red-Eye's  feet.  Both  he  and  the  mother 
reached  for  it,  and  he  got  it.  The  next  moment 
the  frail  little  body  had  whirled  through  the 
air  and  shattered  against  the  wall.  The  mother 
ran  to  it,  caught  it  up  in  her  arms,  and  crouched 
over  it  crying. 


lao  BEFORE   ADAM 

Red-Eye  started  over  to  pick  up  the  stick. 
Old  Marrow-Bone  had  tottered  into  his  way. 
Red-Eye's  great  hand  shot  out  and  clutched  the 
old  man  by  the  back  of  the  neck.  I  looked  to 
see  his  neck  broken.  His  body  went  limp  as 
he  surrendered  himself  to  his  fate.  Red-Eye 
hesitated  a  moment,  and  Marrow-Bone,  shiver 
ing  terribly,  bowed  his  head  and  covered  his 
face  with  his  crossed  arms.  Then  Red-Eye 
slammed  him  face-downward  to  the  ground. 
Old  Marrow-Bone  did  not  struggle.  He  lay 
there  crying  with  the  fear  of  death.  I  saw  the 
Hairless  One,  out  in  the  open  space,  beating 
his  chest  and  bristling,  but  afraid  to  come  for 
ward.  And  then,  in  obedience  to  some  whim 
of  his  erratic  spirit,  Red-Eye  let  the  old  man 
alone  and  passed  on  and  recovered  the  stick. 

He  returned  to  the  wall  and  began  to  climb 
up.  Lop-Ear,  who  was  shivering  and  peeping 
alongside  of  me,  scrambled  back  into  the  cave. 
It  was  plain  that  Red-Eye  was  bent  upon 
murder.  I  was  desperate  and  angry  and  fairly 
cool.  Running  back  and  forth  along  the  neigh 
boring  ledges,  I  gathered  a  heap  of  rocks  at 


BEFORE   ADAM  121 

the  cave-entrance.  Red-Eye  was  now  several 
yards  beneath  me,  concealed  for  the  moment 
by  an  out-jut  of  the  cliff.  As  he  climbed,  his 
head  came  into  view,  and  I  banged  a  rock  down. 
It  missed,  striking  the  wall  and  shattering; 
but  the  flying  dust  and  grit  filled  his  eyes  and 
he  drew  back  out  of  view. 

A  chuckling  and  chattering  arose  from  the 
horde,  that  played  the  part  of  audience. 
At  last  there  was  one  of  the  Folk  who  dared  to 
face  Red-Eye.  As  their  approval  and  acclama 
tion  arose  on  the  air,  Red-Eye  snarled  down  at 
them,  and  on  the  instant  they  were  subdued  to 
silence.  Encouraged  by  this  evidence  of  his 
power,  he  thrust  his  head  into  view,  and  by 
scowling  and  snarling  and  gnashing  his  fangs 
tried  to  intimidate  me.  He  scowled  horribly, 
contracting  the  scalp  strongly  over  the  brows 
and  bringing  the  hair  down  from  the  top  of  the 
head  until  each  hair  stood  apart  and  pointed 
straight  forward. 

The  sight  chilled  me,  but  I  mastered  my 
fear,  and,  with  a  stone  poised  in  my  hand, 
threatened  him  back.  He  still  tried  to  advance. 


122  BEFORE   ADAM 

I  drove  the  stone  down  at  him  and  made  a 
sheer  miss.  The  next  shot  was  a  success. 
The  stone  struck  him  on  the  neck.  He  slipped 
back  out  of  sight,  but  as  he  disappeared  I 
could  see  him  clutching  for  a  grip  on  the  wall 
with  one  hand,  and  with  the  other  clutching 
at  his  throat.  The  stick  fell  clattering  to  the 
ground. 

I  could  not  see  him  any  more,  though  I  could 
hear  him  choking  and  strangling  and  coughing. 
The  audience  kept  a  death-like  silence.  I 
crouched  on  the  lip  of  the  entrance  and  waited. 
The  strangling  and  coughing  died  down,  and  I 
could  hear  him  now  and  again  clearing  his 
throat.  A  little  later  he  began  to  climb  down. 
He  went  very  quietly,  pausing  every  moment  or 
so  to  stretch  his  neck  or  to  feel  it  with  his 
hand. 

At  the  sight  of  him  descending,  the  whole 
horde,  with  wild  screams  and  yells,  stampeded 
for  the  woods.  Old  Marrow-Bone,  hobbling 
and  tottering,  followed  behind.  Red-Eye  took 
no  notice  of  the  flight.  When  he  reached  the 
ground  he  skirted  the  base  of  the  bluff  and 


BEFORE   ADAM 


123 


climbed  up  and  into  his  own  cave.  He  did  not 
look  around  once. 

I  stared  at  Lop-Ear,  and  he  stared  back.  We 
understood  each  other.  Immediately,  and  with 
great  caution  and  quietness,  we  began  climbing 
up  the  cliff.  When  we  reached  the  top  we 
looked  back.  The  abiding-place  was  deserted, 
Red-Eye  remained  in  his  cave,  and  the  horde 
had  disappeared  in  the  depths  of  the  forest. 

We  turned  and  ran.  We  dashed  across  the 
open  spaces  and  down  the  slopes  unmindful 
of  possible  snakes  in  the  grass,  until  we  reached 
the  woods.  Up  into  the  trees  we  went,  and 


124 


BEFORE   ADAM 


on  and  on,  swinging  our  arboreal  flight  until 
we  had  put  miles  between  us  and  the  caves. 
And  then,  and  not  till  then,  in  the  security  of  a 
great  fork,  we  paused,  looked  at  each  other, 
and  began  to  laugh.  We  held  on  to  each  other, 
arms  and  legs,  our  eyes  streaming  tears,  our 
sides  aching,  and  laughed  and  laughed  and 
laughed. 


CHAPTER  X 

AFTER  we  had  had  out  our  laugh,  Lop-Ear 
and  I  curved  back  in  our  flight  and  got 
breakfast  in  the  blueberry  swamp.  It 
was  the  same  swamp  to  which  I  had  made  my 
first  journeys  in  the  world,  years  before,  accom 
panied  by  my  mother.  I  had  seen  little  of  her 
in  the  intervening  time.  Usually,  when  she 
visited  the  horde  at  the  caves,  I  was  away  in  the 
forest.  I  had  once  or  twice  caught  glimpses 
of  the  Chatterer  in  the  open  space,  and  had  had 
the  pleasure  of  making  faces  at  him  and  anger 
ing  him  from  the  mouth  of  my  cave.  Beyond 
such  amenities  I  had  left  my  family  severely 
alone.  I  was  not  much  interested  in  it,  and 
anyway  I  was  doing  very  well  by  myself. 

After  eating  our  fill  of  berries,  with  two  nest- 
fuls  of  partly  hatched  quail-eggs  for  dessert, 
Lop-Ear  and  I  wandered  circumspectly  into 
the  woods  toward  the  river.  Here  was  where 
stood  my  old  home-tree,  out  of  which  I  had  been 

125 


i26  BEFORE   ADAM 

thrown  by  the  Chatterer.  It  was  still  occupied. 
There  had  been  increase  in  the  family.  Cling 
ing  tight  to  my  mother  was  a  little  baby. 
Also,  there  was  a  girl,  partly  grown,  who  cau 
tiously  regarded  us  from  one  of  the  lower 
branches.  She  was  evidently  my  sister,  or 
half-sister,  rather. 

My  mother  recognized  me,  but  she  warned 
me  away  when  I  started  to  climb  into  the 
tree.  Lop-Ear,  who  was  more  cautious  by  far 
than  I,  beat  a  retreat,  nor  could  I  persuade 
him  to  return.  Later  in  the  day,  however,  my 
sister  came  down  to  the  ground,  and  there  and 
in  neighboring  trees  we  romped  and  played  all 
afternoon.  And  then  came  trouble.  She  was 
my  sister,  but  that  did  not  prevent  her  from 
treating  me  abominably,  for  she  had  inherited 
all  the  viciousness  of  the  Chatterer.  She  turned 
upon  me  suddenly,  in  a  petty  rage,  and  scratched 
me,  tore  my  hair,  and  sank  her  sharp  little 
teeth  deep  into  my  forearm.  I  lost  my  temper. 
I  did  not  injure  her,  but  it  was  undoubtedly 
the  soundest  spanking  she  had  received  up  to 
that  time. 


BEFORE   ADAM  127 

How  she  yelled  and  squalled.  The  Chatterer, 
who  had  been  away  all  day  and  who  was  only 
then  returning,  heard  the  noise  and  rushed  for 
the  spot.  My  mother  also  rushed,  but  he 
got  there  first.  Lop-Ear  and  I  did  not  wait 
his  coming.  We  were  off  and  away,  and  the 
Chatterer  gave  us  the  chase  of  our  lives  through 
the  trees. 

After  the  chase  was  over,  and  Lop-Ear  and  I 
had  had  out  our  laugh,  we  discovered  that  twi 
light  was  falling.  Here  was  night  with  all  its 
terrors  upon  us,  and  to  return  to  the  caves  was 
out  of  the  question.  Red-Eye  made  that 
impossible.  We  took  refuge  in  a  tree  that  stood 
apart  from  other  trees,  and  high  up  in  a  fork 
we  passed  the  night.  It  was  a  miserable  night. 
For  the  first  few  hours  it  rained  heavily,  then 
it  turned  cold  and  a  chill  wind  blew  upon  us. 
Soaked  through,  with  shivering  bodies  and 
chattering  teeth,  we  huddled  in  each  other's 
arms.  We  missed  the  snug,  dry  cave  that  so 
quickly  warmed  with  the  heat  of  our  bodies. 

Morning  found  us  wretched  and  resolved. 
We  would  not  spend  another  such  night.  Re- 


128  BEFORE   ADAM 

membering  the  tree-shelters  of  our  elders,  we 
set  to  work  to  make  one  for  ourselves.  We  built 
the  framework  of  a  rough  nest,  and  on  higher 
forks  overhead  even  got  in  several  ridge-poles 
for  the  roof.  Then  the  sun  came  out,  and  under 
its  benign  influence  we  forgot  the  hardships  of 
the  night  and  went  ofF  in  search  of  breakfast. 
After  that,  to  show  the  inconsequentiality  of 
life  in  those  days,  we  fell  to  playing.  It  must 
have  taken  us  all  of  a  month,  working  inter 
mittently,  to  make  our  tree-house;  and  then, 
when  it  was  completed,  we  never  used  it  again. 
But  I  run  ahead  of  my  story.  When  we  fell 
to  playing,  after  breakfast,  on  the  second  day 
away  from  the  caves,  Lop-Ear  led  me  a  chase 
through  the  trees  and  down  to  the  river.  We 
came  out  upon  it  where  a  large  slough  entered 
from  the  blueberry  swamp.  The  mouth  of 
this  slough  was  wide,  while  the  slough  itself 
was  practically  without  a  current.  In  the  dead 
water,  just  inside  its  mouth,  lay  a  tangled  mass 
of  tree  trunks.  Some  of  these,  what  of  the  wear 

-x> 

and  tear  of  freshets  and  of  being  stranded  long 
.summers  on  sand-bars,  were  seasoned  and  dry 


BEFORE   ADAM  129 

and  without  branches.  They  floated  high  in 
the  water,  and  bobbed  up  and  down  or  rolled 
over  when  we  put  our  weight  upon  them. 

Here  and  there  between  the  trunks  were 
water-cracks,  and  through  them  we  could  see 
schools  of  small  fish,  like  minnows,  darting  back 
and  forth.  Lop-Ear  and  I  became  fishermen 
at  once.  Lying  flat  on  the  logs,  keeping  per 
fectly  quiet,  waiting  till  the  minnows  came  close, 
we  would  make  swift  passes  with  our  hands. 
Our  prizes  we  ate  on  the  spot,  wriggling  and 
moist.  We  did  not  notice  the  lack  of  salt. 

The  mouth  of  the  slough  became  our  favorite 
playground.  Here  we  spent  many  hours  each 
day,  catching  fish  and  playing  on  the  logs,  and 
here,  one  day,  we  learned  our  first  lessons  in 
navigation.  The  log  on  which  Lop-Ear  was 
lying  got  adrift.  He  was  curled  up  on  his 
side,  asleep.  A  light  fan  of  air  slowly  drifted 
the  log  away  from  the  shore,  and  when  I 
noticed  his  predicament  the  distance  was 
already  top  great  for  him  to  leap. 

At  first  the  episode  seemed  merely  funny  to 
me.  But  when  one  of  the  vagrant  impulses 


130  BEFORE   ADAM 

of  fear,  common  in  that  age  of  perpetual  in 
security,  moved  within  me,  I  was  struck  with 
my  own  loneliness.  I  was  made  suddenly 
aware  of  Lop-Ear's  remoteness  out  there  on 
that  alien  element  a  few  feet  away.  I  called 
loudly  to  him  a  warning  cry.  He  awoke 
frightened,  and  shifted  his  weight  rashly  on 
the  log.  It  turned  over,  sousing  him  under. 
Three  times  again  it  soused  him  under  as  he 
tried  to  climb  out  upon  it.  Then  he  succeeded, 
crouching  upon  it  and  chattering  with  fear. 

I  could  do  nothing.  Nor  could  he.  Swim 
ming  was  something  of  which  we  knew  nothing. 
We  were  already  too  far  removed  from  the 
lower  life-forms  to  have  the  instinct  for  swim 
ming,  and  we  had  not  yet  become  sufficiently 
man-like  to  undertake  it  as  the  working  out  of 
a  problem.  I  roamed  disconsolately  up  and 
down  the  bank,  keeping  as  close  to  him  in  his 
involuntary  travels  as  I  could,  while  he  wailed 
and  cried  till  it  was  a  wonder  that  he  did  not 
bring  down  upon  us  every  hunting  animal 
within  a  mile. 

The  hours  passed.     The  sun  climbed  over- 


BEFORE   ADAM  131 

head  and  began  its  descent  to  the  west.  The 
light  wind  died  down  and  left  Lop-Ear  on  his 
log  floating  around  a  hundred  feet  away.  And 
then,  somehow,  I  know  not  how,  Lop-Ear 
made  the  great  discovery.  He  began  paddling 
with  his  hands.  At  first  his  progress  was 
slow  and  erratic.  Then  he  straightened  out 


and  began  laboriously 
to  paddle  nearer  and  nearer.     I  could  not 
understand.      I    sat    down    and    watched    and 
waited  until  he  gained  the  shore. 

But  he  had  learned  something,  which  was 
more  than  I  had  done.  Later  in  the  after 
noon,  he  deliberately  launched  out  from  shore 
on  the  log.  Still  later  he  persuaded  me  to 
join  him,  and  I,  too,  learned  the  trick  of  pad 
dling.  For  the  next  several  days  we  could 
not  tear  ourselves  away  from  the  slough.  So 
absorbed  were  we  in  our  new  game  that  we 


i32  BEFORE   ADAM 

almost  neglected  to  eat.  We  even  roosted  in 
a  near-by  tree  at  night.  And  we  forgot  that 
Red-Eye  existed. 

We  were    always   trying   new   logs,  and   we 
learned  that  the  smaller  the  log  the  faster  we 
could  make  it  go.     Also,  we  learned  that  the 
smaller  the  log  the  more  liable  it  was  to  roll 
over    and    give    us    a    ducking.     Still    another 
thing  about  small  logs  we  learned.      One  day 
we  paddled  our  individual  logs  alongside  each 
other.     And    then,    quite    by    accident,   in    the 
course  of  play,  we  discovered  that  when  each, 
with  one  hand  and  foot,  held  on  to  the  other's 
log,  the  logs  were  steadied  and  did  not  turn 
over.     Lying  side  by  side  in  this  position,  our 
outside  hands  and  feet  were  left  free  for  pad 
dling.     Our  final   discovery  was  that  this   ar 
rangement  enabled  us  to  use  still  smaller  logs 
and  thereby  gain  greater  speed.     And  there  our 
discoveries  ended.     We  had  invented  the  most 
primitive    catamaran,    and    we    did    not    have 
sense   enough    to    know    it.     It   never   entered 
our  heads  to  lash  the  logs  together  with  tough 
vines    or    stringy    roots.     We   were    content  to 


BEFORE   ADAM  133 

hold  the  logs  together  with  our  hands  and 
feet. 

It  was  not  until  we  got  over  our  first  enthusi 
asm  for  navigation  and  had  begun  to  return 
to  our  tree-shelter  to  sleep  at  night,  that  we 
found  the  Swift  One.  I  saw  her  first,  gather 
ing  young  acorns  from  the  branches  of  a  large 
oak  near  our  tree.  She  was  very  timid.  At 
first,  she  kept  very  still;  but  when  she  saw  that 
she  was  discovered  she  dropped  to  the  ground 
and  dashed  wildly  away.  We  caught  occasional 
glimpses  of  her  from  day  to  day,  and  came  to 
look  for  her  when  we  travelled  back  and  forth 
between  our  tree  and  the  mouth  of  the  slough. 

And  then,  one  day,  she  did  not  run  away. 
She  waited  our  coming,  and  made  soft  peace- 
sounds.  We  could  not  get  very  near,  however. 
When  we  seemed  to  approach  too  close,  she 
darted  suddenly  away  and  from  a  safe  distance 
uttered  the  soft  sounds  again.  This  con 
tinued  for  some  days.  It  took  a  long  while  to 
get  acquainted  with  her,  but  finally  it  was 
accomplished  and  she  joined  us  sometimes  in 
our  play. 


i34  BEFORE   ADAM 

I  liked  her  from  the  first.  She  was  of  most 
pleasing  appearance.  She  was  very  mild.  Her 
eyes  were  the  mildest  I  had  ever  seen.  In  this 
she  was  quite  unlike  the  rest  of  the  girls  and 
women  of  the  Folk,  who  were  born  viragos. 
She  never  made  harsh,  angry  cries,  and  it 
seemed  to  be  her  nature  to  flee  away  from 
trouble  rather  than  to  remain  and  fight. 

The  mildness  I  have  mentioned  seemed  to 
emanate  from  her  whole  being.  Her  bodily 
as  well  as  facial  appearance  was  the  cause  of 
this.  Her  eyes  were  larger  than  most  of  her 
kind,  and  they  were  not  so  deep-set,  while  the 
lashes  were  longer  and  more  regular.  Nor  was 
her  nose  so  thick  and  squat.  It  had  quite  a 
bridge,  and  the  nostrils  opened  downward. 
Her  incisors  were  not  large,  nor  was  her  upper 
lip  long  and  down-hanging,  nor  her  lower  lip 
protruding.  She  was  not  very  hairy,  except 
on  the  outsides  of  arms  and  legs  and  across  the 
shoulders;  and  while  she  was  thin-hipped,  her 
calves  were  not  twisted  and  gnarly. 

I  have  often  wondered,  looking  back  upon 
her  from  the  twentieth  century  through  the 


BEFORE   ADAM 


135 


medium  of  my  dreams,  and  it  has  always 
occurred  to  me  that  possibly  she  may  have  been 
related  to  the  Fire  People.  Her  father,  or 
mother,  might  well  have  come  from  that  higher 
stock.  While  such  things  were  not  common, 
still  they  did  occur,  and 
I  have  seen  the  proof  of 
them  with  my  own  eyes, 
even  to  the  extent  of 
members  of  the  horde 
turning  renegade  and 
going  to  live  with  the 
Tree  People. 

All  of  which  is  neither  here  nor  there.  The 
Swift  One  was  radically  different  from  any  of 
the  females  of  the  horde,  and  I  had  a  liking 
for  her  from  the  first.  Her  mildness  and 
gentleness  attracted  me.  She  was  never  rough, 
and  she  never  fought.  She  always  ran  away, 
and  right  here  may  be  noted  the  significance  of 
the  naming  of  her.  She  was  a  better  climber 
than  Lop-Ear  or  I.  When  we  played  tag  we 
could  never  catch  her  except  by  accident, 
while  she  could  catch  us  at  will.  She  was 


136  BEFORE   ADAM 

remarkably  swift  in  all  her  movements,  and 
she  had  a  genius  for  judging  distances  that  was 
equalled  only  by  her  daring.  Excessively 
timid  in  all  other  matters,  she  was  without  fear 
when  it  came  to  climbing  or  running  through 
the  trees,  and  Lop-Ear  and  I  were  awkward 
and  lumbering  and  cowardly  in  comparison. 

She  was  an  orphan.  We  never  saw  her  with 
any  one,  and  there  was  no  telling  how  long  she 
had  lived  alone  in  the  world.  She  must  have 
learned  early  in  her  helpless  childhood  that 
safety  lay  only  in  flight.  She  was  very  wise 
and  very  discreet.  It  became  a  sort  of  game 
with  Lop-Ear  and  me  to  try  to  find  where  she 
lived.  It  was  certain  that  she  had  a  tree-shelter 
somewhere,  and  not  very  far  away;  but  trail 
her  as  we  would,  we  could  never  find  it.  She 
was  willing  enough  to  join  with  us  at  play  in 
the  day-time,  but  the  secret  of  her  abiding- 
place  she  guarded  jealously. 


CHAPTER  XI 

IT  must  be   remembered  that  the  descrip 
tion  I  have  just  given  of  the  Swift  One  is 
not  the  description  that  would  have  been 
given  by  Big-Tooth,  my  other  self  of  my  dreams, 
my  prehistoric  ancestor.     It  is  by  the  medium 
of  my  dreams  that  I,  the  modern  man,  look 
through  the  eyes  of  Big-Tooth  and  see. 

And  so  it  is  with  much  that  I  narrate  of  the 
events  of  that  far-off  time.  There  is  a  duality 
about  my  impressions  that  is  too  confusing  to 
inflict  upon  my  readers.  I  shall  merely  pause 
here  in  my  narrative  to  indicate  this  duality, 
this  perplexing  mixing  of  personality.  It  is 
I,  the  modern,  who  look  back  across  the  cen 
turies  and  weigh  and  analyze  the  emotions  and 
motives  of  Big-Tooth,  my  other  self.  He  did 
not  bother  to  weigh  and  analyze.  He  was 
simplicity  itself.  He  just  lived  events,  without 
ever  pondering  why  he  lived  them  in  his  par 
ticular  and  often  erratic  way. 

137 


138  BEFORE   ADAM 

As  I,  my  real  self,  grew  older,  I  entered  more 
and  more  into  the  substance  of  my  dreams. 
One  may  dream,  and  even  in  the  midst  of  the 
dream  be  aware  that  he  is  dreaming,  and  if 
the  dream  be  bad,  comfort  himself  with  the 
thought  that  it  is  only  a  dream.  This  is  a 
common  experience  with  all  of  us.  And  so 
it  was  that  I,  the  modern,  often  entered  into 
my  dreaming,  and  in  the  consequent  strange 
dual  personality  was  both  actor  and  spectator. 
And  right  often  have  I,  the  modern,  been 
perturbed  and  vexed  by  the  foolishness,  illogic, 
obtuseness,  and  general  all-round  stupendous 
stupidity  of  myself,  the  primitive. 

And  one  thing  more,  before  I  end  this 
digression.  Have  you  ever  dreamed  that  you 
dreamed  ?  Dogs  dream,  horses  dream,  all 
animals  dream.  In  Big-Tooth's  day  the  half- 
men  dreamed,  and  when  the  dreams  were  bad 
they  howled  in  their  sleep.  Now  I,  the  modern, 
have  lain  down  with  Big-Tooth  and  dreamed 
his  dreams. 

This  is  getting  almost  beyond  the  grip  of  the 
intellect,  I  know;  but  I  do  know  that  I  have 


BEFORE   ADAM 


139 


done  this  thing.  And  let  me  tell  you  that  the 
flying  and  crawling  dreams  of  Big-Tooth  were 
as  vivid  to  him  as  the  falling-through-space 
dream  is  to  you. 

For  Big-Tooth  also  had  an  other-self,  and 
when  he  slept  that  other-self  dreamed  back  into 
the  past,  back  to  the  winged  reptiles  and  the 
clash  and  the  onset  of  dragons,  and  beyond  that 
to  the  scurrying,  rodent-like  life  of  the  tiny 
mammals,  and  far  remoter  still,  to  the  shore- 
slime  of  the  primeval  sea.  I  cannot,  I  dare 
not,  say  more.  It  is  all  too  vague  and  com 
plicated  and  awful.  I  can  only  hint  of  those 
vast  and  terrific  vistas  through  which  I  have 
peered  hazily  at  the  progression  of  life,  not 
upward  from  the 
ape  to  man,  but 
upward  from  the 
worm. 

And  now  to  re 
turn  to  my  tale.  I, 
Big-Tooth,  knew 
not  the  Swift  One 
as  a  creature  of 


140  BEFORE   ADAM 

finer  facial  and  bodily  symmetry,  with  long- 
lashed  eyes  and  a  bridge  to  her  nose  and  down- 
opening  nostrils  that  made  toward  beauty. 
I  knew  her  only  as  the  mild-eyed  young  female 
who  made  soft  sounds  and  did  not  fight.  I 
liked  to  play  with  her,  I  knew  not  why,  to  seek 
food  in  her  company,  and  to  go  bird-nesting 
with  her.  And  I  must  confess  she  taught  me 
things  about  tree-climbing.  She  was  very  wise, 
very  strong,  and  no  clinging  skirts  impeded  her 
movements. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  a  slight  defection 
arose  on  the  part  of  Lop-Ear.  He  got  into  the 
habit  of  wandering  off  in  the  direction  of  the 
tree  where  my  mother  lived.  He  had  taken  a 
liking  to  my  vicious  sister,  and  the  Chatterer  had 
come  to  tolerate  him.  Also,  there  were  several 
other  young  people,  progeny  of  the  monogamic 
couples  that  lived  in  the  neighborhood,  and 
Lop-Ear  played  with  these  young  people. 

I  could  never  get  the  Swift  One  to  join  with 
them.  Whenever  I  visited  them  she  dropped 
behind  and  disappeared.  I  remember  once 
making  a  strong  effort  to  persuade  her.  But 


BEFORE   ADAM  141 

she  cast  backward,  anxious  glances,  then  re 
treated,  calling  to  me  from  a  tree.  So  it  was 
that  I  did  n«>t  make  a  practice  of  accompanying 
Lop-Ear  when  he  went  to  visit  his  new  friends. 
The  Swift  One  and  I  were  good  comrades,  but, 
try  as  I  would,  I  could  never  find  her  tree- 
shelter.  Undoubtedly,  had  nothing  happened, 
we  would  have  soon  mated,  for  our  liking  was 
mutual;  but  the  something  did  happen. 

One  morning,  the  Swift  One  not  having  put 
in  an  appearance,  Lop-Ear  and  I  were  down 
at  the  mouth  of  the  slough  playing  on  the 
logs.  We  had  scarcely  got  out  on  the  water, 
when  we  were  startled  by  a  roar  of  rage.  It 
was  Red-Eye.  He  was  crouching  on  the  edge 
of  the  timber  jam  and  glowering  his  hatred  at 
us.  We  were  badly  frightened,  for  here  was 
no  narrow-mouthed  cave  for  refuge.  But  the 
twenty  feet  of  water  that  intervened  gave  us 
temporary  safety,  and  we  plucked  up  courage. 

Red-Eye  stood  up  erect  and  began  beating 
his  hairy  chest  with  his  fist.  Our  two  logs  were 
side  by  side,  and  we  sat  on  them  and  laughed 
at  him.  At  first  our  laughter  was  half-hearted, 


142  BEFORE   ADAM 

tinged  with  fear,  but  as  we  became  convinced 
of  his  impotence  we  waxed  uproarious.  He 
raged  and  raged  at  us,  and  ground  his  teeth 
in  helpless  fury.  And  in  our  fancied  security 
we  mocked  and  mocked  him.  We  were  ever 
short-sighted,  we  Folk. 

Red-Eye  abruptly  ceased  his  breast-beating 
and  tooth-grinding,  and  ran  across  the  timber- 
jam  to  the  shore.  And  just  as  abruptly  our 
merriment  gave  way  to  consternation.  It  was 
not  Red-Eye's  way  to  forego  revenge  so  easily. 
We  waited  in  fear  and  trembling  for  whatever 
was  to  happen.  It  never  struck  us  to  paddle 
away.  He  came  back  with  great  leaps  across 
the  jam,  one  huge  hand  filled  with  round, 
water-washed  pebbles.  I  am  glad  that  he  was 
unable  to  find  larger  missiles,  say  stones  weigh 
ing  two  or  three  pounds,  for  we  were  no  more 
than  a  score  of  feet  away,  and  he  surely  would 
have  killed  us. 

As  it  was,  we  were  in  no  small  danger.  Zip  ! 
A  tiny  pebble  whirred  past  with  the  force 
almost  of  a  bullet.  Lop-Ear  and  I  began 
paddling  frantically.  Whiz-zip-bang !  Lop-Ear 


"It  was  Red-Eye." 


BEFORE   ADAM  145 

screamed  with  sudden  anguish.  The  pebble 
had  struck  him  between  the  shoulders.  Then 
I  got  one  and  yelled.  The  only  thing  that  saved 
us  was  the  exhausting  of  Red-Eye's  ammunition. 
He  dashed  back  to  the  gravel-bed  for  more, 
while  Lop-Ear  and  I  paddled  away. 

Gradually  we  drew  out  of  range,  though 
Red-Eye  continued  making  trips  for  more 
ammunition  and  the  pebbles  continued  to  whiz 
about  us.  Out  in  the  centre  of  the  slough  there 
was  a  slight  current,  and  in  our  excitement  we 
failed  to  notice  that  it  was  drifting  us  into  the 
river.  We  paddled,  and  Red-Eye  kept  as  close 
as  he  could  to  us  by  following  along  the  shore. 
Then  he  discovered  larger  rocks.  Such  am 
munition  increased  his  range.  One  fragment, 
fully  five  pounds  in  weight,  crashed  on  the  log 
alongside  of  me,  and  such  was  its  impact  that 
it  drove  a  score  of  splinters,  like  fiery  needles, 
into  my  leg.  Had  it  struck  me  it  would  have 
killed  me. 

And  then  the  river  current  caught  us.  So 
wildly  were  we  paddling  that  Red-Eye  was  the 
first  to  notice  it,  and  our  first  warning  was  his 


146 


BEFORE   ADAM 


yell  of  triumph.  Where  the  edge  of  the  cur 
rent  struck  the  slough-water  was  a  series  of 
eddies  or  small  whirlpools.  These  caught  our 
clumsy  logs  and  whirled  them  end  for  end, 
back  and  forth  and  around.  We  quit  paddling 
and  devoted  our  whole  energy  to  holding  the 
logs  together  alongside  each  other.  In  the 
meanwhile  Red-Eye  continued  to  bombard  us, 
the  rock  fragments  falling  about  us,  splashing 
water  on  us,  and  menacing  our  lives.  At  the  same 
time  he  gloated  over  us,  wildly  and  vociferously. 
It  happened  that  there  was  a  sharp  turn  iri 
the  river  at  the  point  where  the  slough  entered, 
and  the  whole  main  current  of  the  river  was 
deflected  to  the  other  bank.  And  toward  that 
bank,  which  was  the  north  bank,  we  drifted 
rapidly,  at  the  same  time  going  down-stream. 


BEFORE   ADAM  147 

This  quickly  took  us  out  of  range  of  Red- 
Eye,  and  the  last  we  saw  of  him  was  far  out 
on  a  point  of  land,  where  he  was  jumping  up 
and  down  and  chanting  a  paean  of  victory. 

Beyond  holding  the  two  logs  together,  Lop- 
Ear  and  I  did  nothing.  We  were  resigned  to 
our  fate,  and  we  remained  resigned  until  we 
aroused  to  the  fact  that  we  were  drifting  along 
the  north  shore  not  a  hundred  feet  away.  We 
began  to  paddle  for  it.  Here  the  main  force 
of  the  current  was  flung  back  toward  the  south 
shore,  and  the  result  of  our  paddling  was  that 
we  crossed  the  current  where  it  was  swiftest 
and  narrowest.  Before  we  were  aware,  we 
were  out  of  it  and  in  a  quiet  eddy. 

Our  logs  drifted  slowly  and  at  last  grounded 
gently  on  the  bank.  Lop-Ear  and  I  crept 
ashore.  The  logs  drifted  on  out  of  the  eddy 
and  swept  away  down  the  stream.  We  looked 
at  each  other,  but  we  did  not  laugh.  We  were 
in  a  strange  land,  and  it  did  not  enter  our  minds 
that  we  could  return  to  our  own  land  in  the 
same  manner  that  we  had  come. 

We  had  learned  how  to  cross  a  river,  though 


148  BEFORE   ADAM 

we  did  not  know  it.  And  this  was  something 
that  no  one  else  of  the  Folk  had  ever  done.  We 
were  the  first  of  the  Folk  to  set  foot  on  the  north 
bank  of  the  river,  and,  for  that  matter,  I  believe 
the  last.  That  they  would  have  done  so  in 
the  time  to  come  is  undoubted ;  but  the  migra 
tion  of  the  Fire  People,  and  the  consequent 
migration  of  the  survivors  of  the  Folk,  set  back 
our  evolution  for  centuries. 

Indeed,  there  is  no  telling  how  disastrous 
was  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  Fire  People's 
migration.  Personally,  I  am  prone  to  believe 
that  it  brought  about  the  destruction  of  the 
Folk;  that  we,  a  branch  of  lower  life  budding 
toward  the  human,  were  nipped  short  off  and 
perished  down  by  the  roaring  surf  where  the 
river  entered  the  sea.  Of  course,  in  such  an 
eventuality,  I  remain  to  be  accounted  for;  but 
I  outrun  my  story,  and  such  accounting  will 
be  made  before  I  am  done. 


CHAPTER   XII 

I  HAVE  no  idea  how  long  Lop-Ear  and  I 
wandered  in  the  land  north  of  the  river. 
We  were  like  mariners  wrecked  on  a  desert 
isle,  so  far  as  concerned  the  likelihood  of  our 
getting  home  again.  We  turned  our  backs 
upon  the  river,  and  for  weeks  and  months  ad 
ventured  in  that  wilderness  where  there  were 
no  Folk.  It  is  very  difficult  for  me  to  recon 
struct  our  journeying,  and  impossible  to  do  it 
from  day  to  day.  Most  of  it  is  hazy  and  indis 
tinct,  though  here  and  there  I  have  vivid 
recollections  of  things  that  happened. 

Especially  do  I  remember  the  hunger  we 
endured  on  the  mountains  between  Long  Lake 
and  Far  Lake,  and  the  calf  we  caught  sleeping 
in  the  thicket.  Also,  there  are  the  Tree  People 
who  dwelt  in  the  forest  between  Long  Lake 
and  the  mountains.  It  was  they  who  chased 
us  into  the  mountains  and  compelled  us  to 
travel  on  to  Far  Lake. 

149 


150 


BEFORE   ADAM 


First,  after  we  left  the  river,  we  worked  toward 
the  west  till  we  came  to  a  small  stream  that 
flowed  through  marshlands.  Here  we  turned 
away  toward  the  north,  skirting  the  marshes  and 
after  several  days  arriving  at  what  I  have  called 
Long  Lake.  We  spent  some  time  around  its 
upper  end,  where  we  found  food  in  plenty;  and 
then,  one  day,  in  the  forest,  we  ran  foul  of  the 
Tree  People.  These  creatures  were  ferocious 
apes,  nothing  more.  And  yet  they  were  not  so 
different  from  us.  They  were  more  hairy,  it  is 


BEFORE   ADAM  151 

true;  their  legs  were  a  trifle  more  twisted  and 
gnarly,  their  eyes  a  bit  smaller,  their  necks  a 
bit  thicker  and  shorter,  and  their  nostrils 
slightly  more  like  orifices  in  a  sunken  surface; 
but  they  had  no  hair  on  their  faces  and  on  the 
palms  of  their  hands  and  the  soles  of  their  feet, 
and  they  made  sounds  similar  to  ours  with 
somewhat  similar  meanings.  After  all,  the 
Tree  People  and  the  Folk  were  not  so  unlike. 

I  found  him  first,  a  little  withered,  dried-up 
old  fellow,  wrinkled-faced  and  bleary-eyed  and 
tottery.  He  was  legitimate  prey.  In  our  world 
there  was  no  sympathy  between  the  kinds,  and 
he  was  not  our  kind.  He  was  a  Tree-Man, 
and  he  was  very  old.  He  was  sitting  at  the 
foot  of  a  tree  —  evidently  his  tree,  for  we  could 
see  the  tattered  nest  in  the  branches,  in  which 
he  slept  at  night. 

I  pointed  him  out  to  Lop-Ear,  and  we  made 
a  rush  for  him.  He  started  to  climb,  but  was 
too  slow.  I  caught  him  by  the  leg  and  dragged 
him  back.  Then  we  had  fun.  We  pinched 
him,  pulled  his  hair,  tweaked  his  ears,  and  poked 
twigs  into  him,  and  all  the  while  we  laughed 


i52  BEFORE   ADAM 

with  streaming  eyes.  His  futile  anger  was 
most  absurd.  He  was  a  comical  sight,  striving 
to  fan  into  flame  the  cold  ashes  of  his  youth, 
to  resurrect  his  strength  dead  and  gone  through 
the  oozing  of  the  years  —  making  woful  faces 
in  place  of  the  ferocious  ones  he  intended, 
grinding  his  worn  teeth  together,  beating  his 
meagre  chest  with  feeble  fists. 

Also,  he  had  a  cough,  and  he  gasped  and 
hacked  and  spluttered  prodigiously.  Every 
time  he  tried  to  climb  the  tree  we  pulled  him 
back,  until  at  last  he  surrendered  to  his  weakness 
and  did  no  more  than  sit  and  weep.  And  Lop- 
Ear  and  I  sat  with  him,  our  arms  around  each 
other,  and  laughed  at  his  wretchedness. 

From  weeping  he  went  to  whining,  and  from 
whining  to  wailing,  until  at  last  he  achieved 
a  scream.  This  alarmed  us,  but  the  more  we 
tried  to  make  him  cease,  the  louder  he  screamed. 
And  then,  from  not  far  away  in  the  forest, 
came  a  "Goek!  Goek!"  to  our  ears.  To 
this  there  were  answering  cries,  several  of  them, 
and  from  very  far  off  we  could  hear  a  big,  bass 
"Goek!  Goek!  Goek!"  Also,  the  "Whoo- 


BEFORE   ADAM  153 

whoo!"  call  was  rising  in  the  forest  all  around 
us. 

Then  came  the  chase.  It  seemed  it  never 
would  end.  They  raced  us  through  the  trees, 
the  whole  tribe  of  them,  and  nearly  caught  us. 
We  were  forced  to  take  to  the  ground,  and  here 
we  had  the  advantage,  for  they  were  truly  the 
Tree  People,  and  while  they  out-climbed  us  we 
out-footed  them  on  the  ground.  We  broke 
away  toward  the  north,  the  tribe  howling  on 
our  track.  Across  the  open  spaces  we  gained, 
and  in  the  brush  they  caught  up  with  us,  and 
more  than  once  it  was  nip  and  tuck.  And  as 
the  chase  continued,  we  realized  that  we  were 
not  their  kind,  either,  and  that  the  bonds 
between  us  were  anything  but  sympathetic. 

They  ran  us  for  hours.  The  forest  seemed 
interminable.  We  kept  to  the  glades  as  much 
as  possible,  but  they  always  ended  in  more 
thick  forest.  Sometimes  we  thought  we  had 
escaped,  and  sat  down  to  rest;  but  always, 
before  we  could  recover  our  breath,  we  would 
hear  the  hateful  "Whoo-whoo!"  cries  and  the 
terrible  "Goek!  Goek!  Goek!"  This  latter 


154  BEFORE   ADAM 

sometimes  terminated  in  a  savage  "Ha  ha  ha  ha 
haaaaa!!!" 

And  in  this  fashion  were  we  hunted  through 
the  forest  by  the  exasperated  Tree  People. 
At  last,  by  mid-afternoon,  the  slopes  began 
rising  higher  and  higher  and  the  trees  were 
becoming  smaller.  Then  we  came  out  on  the 
grassy  flanks  of  the  mountains.  Here  was  where 
we  could  make  time,  and  here  the  Tree  People 
gave  up  and  returned  to  their  forest. 

The  mountains  were  bleak  and  inhospitable, 
and  three  times  that  afternoon  we  tried  to 
regain  the  woods.  But  the  Tree  People  were 
lying  in  wait,  and  they  drove  us  back.  Lop-Ear 
and  I  slept  that  night  in  a  dwarf  tree,  no  larger 
than  a  bush.  Here  was  no  security,  and  we 
would  have  been  easy  prey  for  any  hunting 
animal  that  chanced  along. 

In  the  morning,  what  of  our  new-gained 
respect  for  the  Tree  People,  we  faced  into  the 
mountains.  That  we  had  no  definite  plan, 
or  even  idea,  I  am  confident.  We  were  merely 
driven  on  by  the  danger  we  had  escaped.  Of 
our  wanderings  through  the  mountains  I  have 


BEFORE  ADAM 


155 


only  misty  memories.  We  were  in  that  bleak 
region  many  days,  and  we  suffered  much, 
especially  from  fear,  it  was  all  so  new  and 
strange.  Also,  we  suffered  from  the  cold,  and 
later  from  hunger. 

It  was  a  desolate  land  of  rocks  and  foaming 
streams  and  clattering  cataracts.  We  climbed 
and  descended  mighty  canyons  and  gorges; 
and  ever,  from  every  view  point,  there  spread 
out  before  us,  in  all  directions,  range  upon 
range,  the  unceasing 
mountains.  We  slept 
at  night  in  holes 
and  crevices,  and  on 
one  cold  night  we 
perched  on  top  a 
slender  pinnacle  of 
rock  that  was  almost 
like  a  tree. 

And  then,  at  last, 
one    hot    midday, 
dizzy    with    hunger, 
we  gained  the  di-     , 
vide.      From    this 


156  BEFORE   ADAM 

high  backbone  of  earth,  to  the  north,  across  the 
diminishing,  down-falling  ranges,  we  caught  a 
glimpse  of  a  far  lake.  The  sun  shone  upon  it, 
and  about  it  were  open,  level  grass-lands,  while 
to  the  eastward  we  saw  the  dark  line  of  a  wide- 
stretching  forest. 

We  were  two  days  in  gaining  the  lake,  and 
we  were  weak  with  hunger;  but  on  its  shore, 
sleeping  snugly  in  a  thicket,  we  found  a  part- 
grown  calf.  It  gave  us  much  trouble,  for  we 
knew  no  other  way  to  kill  than  with  our  hands. 
When  we  had  gorged  our  fill,  we  carried  the 
remainder  of  the  meat  to  the  eastward  forest 
and  hid  it  in  a  tree.  We  never  returned  to 
that  tree,  for  the  shore  of  the  stream  that  drained 
Far  Lake  was  packed  thick  with  salmon  that 
had  come  up  from  the  sea  to  spawn. 

Westward  from  the  lake  stretched  the  grass 
lands,  and  here  were  multitudes  of  bison  and 
wild  cattle.  Also  were  there  many  packs  of 
wild  dogs,  and  as  there  were  no  trees  it  was  not 
a  safe  place  for  us.  We  followed  north  along 
the  stream  for  days.  Then,  and  for  what  reason 
I  do  not  know,  we  abruptly  left  the  stream  and 


BEFORE   ADAM  157 

swung  to  the  east,  and  then  to  the  southeast, 
through  a  great  forest.  I  shall  not  bore  you 
with  our  journey.  I  but  indicate  it  to  show  how 
we  finally  arrived  at  the  Fire  People's  country. 
•  We  came  out  upon  the  river,  but  we  did  not 
know  it  for  our  river.  We  had  been  lost  so 
long  that  we  had  come  to  accept  the  condition 
of  being  lost  as  habitual.  As  I  look  back  I 
see  clearly  how  our  lives  and  destinies  are 
shaped  by  the  merest  chance.  We  did  not 
know  it  was  our  river  —  there  was  no  way  of 
telling;  and  if  we  had  never  crossed  it  we  would 
most  probably  have  never  returned  to  the 
horde;  and  I,  the  modern,  the  thousand  cen 
turies  yet  to  be  born,  would  never  have  been 
born. 

And  yet  Lop-Ear  and  I  wanted  greatly  to 
return.  We  had  experienced  homesickness  on 
our  journey,  the  yearning  for  our  own  kind  and 
land;  and  often  had  I  had  recollections  of 
the  Swift  One,  the  young  female  who  made 
soft  sounds,  whom  it  was  good  to  be  with,  and 
who  lived  by  herself  nobody  knew  where.  My 
recollections  of  her  were  accompanied  by  sen- 


158  BEFORE   ADAM 

sations  of  hunger,  and  these  I  felt  when  I  was 
not  hungry  and  when  I  had  just  eaten. 

But  to  come  back  to  the  river.  Food  was 
plentiful,  principally  berries  and  succulent 
roots,  and  on  the  river  bank  we  played  and 
lingered  for  days.  And  then  the  idea  came  to 
Lop-Ear.  It  was  a  visible  process,  the  coming 
of  the  idea.  I  saw  it.  The  expression  in  his 
eyes  became  plaintive  and  querulous,  and  he 
was  greatly  perturbed.  Then  his  eyes  went 
muddy,  as  if  he  had  lost  his  grip  on  the  inchoate 
thought.  This  was  followed  by  the  plaintive, 
querulous  expression  as  the  idea  persisted  and 
he  clutched  it  anew.  He  looked  at  me,  and  at 
the  river  and  the  far  shore.  He  tried  to  speak, 
but  had  no  sounds  with  which  to  express  the 
idea.  The  result  was  a  gibberish  that  made  me 
laugh.  This  angered  him,  and  he  grabbed  me 
suddenly  and  threw  me  on  my  back.  Of  course 
we  fought,  and  in  the  end  I  chased  him  up  a 
tree,  where  he  secured  a  long  branch  and  poked 
me  every  time  I  tried  to  get  at  him. 

And  the  idea  had  gone  glimmering.  I  did 
not  know,  and  he  had  forgotten.  But  the 


BEFORE   ADAM  159 

next  morning  it  awoke  in  him  again.  Perhaps 
it  was  the  homing  instinct  in  him  asserting 
itself  that  made  the  idea  persist.  At  any  rate 
it  was  there,  and  clearer  than  before.  He  led 
me  down  to  the  water,  where  a  log  had  grounded 
in  an  eddy.  I  thought  he  was  minded  to  play, 
as  we  had  played  in  the  mouth  of  the  slough. 
Nor  did  I  change  my  mind  as  I  watched  him 
tow  up  a  second  log  from  farther  down  the  shore. 

It  wras  not  until  we  were  on  the  logs,  side  by 
side  and  holding  them  together,  and  had  paddled 
out  into  the  current,  that  I  learned  his  inten 
tion.  He  paused  to  point  at  the  far  shore, 
and  resumed  his  paddling,  at  the  same  time 
uttering  loud  and  encouraging  cries.  I  under 
stood,  and  we  paddled  energetically.  The  swift 
current  caught  us,  flung  us  toward  the  south 
shore,  but  before  we  could  make  a  landing 
flung  us  back  toward  the  north  shore. 

Here  arose  dissension.  Seeing  the  north  shore 
so  near,  I  began  to  paddle  for  it.  Lop-Ear 
tried  to  paddle  for  the  south  shore.  The 
logs  swung  around  in  circles,  and  we  got  no 
where,  and  all  the  time  the  forest  was  flashing 


i6o 


BEFORE   ADAM 


past  as  we  drifted  down  the  stream.  We 
could  not  fight.  We  knew  better  than  to  let 
go  the  grips  of  hands  and  feet  that  held  the 
logs  together.  But  we  chattered  and  abused 
each  other  with  our  tongues  until  the  current 
flung  us  toward  the  south  bank  again.  That 
was  now  the  nearest  goal,  and  together  and 
amicably  we  paddled  for  it.  We  landed  in  an 
eddy,  and  climbed  directly  into  the  trees  to 
reconnoitre. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

IT  was  not  until  the  night  of  our  first  day 
on  the  south  bank  of  the  river  that  we 
discovered  the  Fire  People.  What  must 
have  been  a  band  of  wandering  hunters  went 
into  camp  not  far  from  the  tree  in  which  Lop- 
Ear  and  I  had  elected  to  roost  for  the  night. 
The  voices  of  the  Fire  People  at  first  alarmed 
us,  but  later,  when  darkness  had  come,  we  were 
attracted  by  the  fire.  We  crept  cautiously  and 
silently  from  tree  to  tree  till  we  got  a  good 
view  of  the  scene. 

In  an  open  space  among  the  trees,  near  to 
the  river,  the  fire  was  burning.  About  it  were 
half  a  dozen  Fire-Men.  Lop-Ear  clutched  me 
suddenly,  and  I  could  feel  him  tremble.  I 
looked  more  .closely,  and  saw  the  wizened 
little  old  hunter  who  had  shot  Broken-Tooth 
out  of  the  tree  years  before.  When  he  got  up 
and  walked  about,  throwing  fresh  wood  upon 
M  161 


162  BEFORE   ADAM 

the  fire,  I  saw  that  he  limped  with  his  crippled 
leg.  Whatever  it  was,  it  was  a  permanent 
injury.  He  seemed  more  dried  up  and  wizened 
than  ever,  and  the  hair  on  his  face  was  quite 
gray. 

The  other  hunters  were  young  men.  I 
noted,  lying  near  them  on  the  ground,  their 
bows  and  arrows,  and  I  knew  the  weapons  for 
what  they  were.  The  Fire-Men  wore  animal 
skins  around  their  waists  and  across  their 
shoulders.  Their  arms  and  legs,  however, 
were  bare,  and  they  wore  no  footgear.  As  I 
have  said  before,  they  were  not  quite  so  hairy 
as  we  of  the  Folk.  They  did  not  have  large 
heads,  and  between  them  and  the  Folk  there  was 
very  little  difference  in  the  degree  of  the  slant 
of  the  head  back  from  the  eyes. 

They  were  less  stooped  than  we,  less  springy 
in  their  movements.  Their  backbones  and 
hips  and  knee-joints  seemed  more  rigid.  Their 
arms  were  not  so  long  as  ours  either,  and  I  did 
not  notice  that  they  ever  balanced  themselves 
when  they  walked,  by  touching  the  ground  on 
either  side  with  their  hands.  Also,  their  muscles 


BEFORE   ADAM  163 

were  more  rounded  and  symmetrical  than  ours, 
and  their  faces  were  more  pleasing.  Their 
nose  orifices  opened  downward;  likewise  the 
bridges  of  their  noses  were  more  developed,  did 
not  look  so  squat  nor  crushed  as  ours.  Their 
lips  were  less  flabby  and  pendent,  and  their 
eye-teeth  did  not  look  so  much  like  fangs. 
However,  they  were  quite  as  thin-hipped  as  we, 
and  did  not  weigh  much  more.  Take  it  all 
in  all,  they  were  less  different  from  us  than  were 
we  from  the  Tree  People.  Certainly,  all  three 
kinds  were  related,  and  not  so  remotely  related 
at  that. 

The  fire  around  which  they  sat  was  especially 
attractive.  Lop-Ear  and  I  sat  for  hours,  watch 
ing  the  flames  and  smoke.  It  was  most  fas 
cinating  when  fresh  fuel  was  thrown  on  and 
showers  of  sparks  went  flying  upward.  I 
wanted  to  come  closer  and  look  at  the  fire,  but 
there  was  no  way.  We  were  crouching  in  the 
forks  of  a  tree  on  the  edge  of  the  open  space, 
and  we  did  not  dare  run  the  risk  of  being 
discovered. 

The  Fire-Men  squatted  around  the  fire  and 


164 


BEFORE   ADAM 


slept  with  their  heads  bowed  forward  on  their 
knees.  They  did  not  sleep  soundly.  Their 
ears  twitched  in  their  sleep,  and  they  were 
restless.  Every  little  while  one  or  another  got 
up  and  threw  more  wood  upon  the  fire.  About 
the  circle  of  light  in  the  forest,  in  the  darkness 
beyond,  roamed  hunting  animals.  Lop-Ear 
and  I  could  tell  them  by  their  sounds.  There 
were  wild  dogs  and  a  hyena,  and  for  a  time 
there  was  a  great  yelping  and  snarling  that 

awakened  on  the  instant  the  whole  circle  of 

f 

sleeping  Fire-Men. 

Once  a  lion  and  a  lioness  stood  beneath  our 
tree  and  gazed  out  with  bristling  hair  and 
blinking  eyes.  The  lion  licked  his  chops  and 
was  nervous  with  eagerness,  as  if  he  wanted 
to  go  forward  and  make  a  meal.  But  the 
lioness  was  more  cautious.  It  was  she  that 

discovered    us,    and    the 
pair  stood 


BEFORE   ADAM  165 

and  looked  up  at  us,  silently,  with  twitching, 
scenting  nostrils.  Then  they  growled,  looked 
once  again  at  the  fire,  and  turned  away  into 
the  forest. 

For  a  much  longer  time  Lop-Ear  and  I 
remained  and  watched.  Now  and  again  we 
could  hear  the  crashing  of  heavy  bodies  in  the 
thickets  and  underbrush,  and  from  the  darkness 
of  the  other  side,  across  the  circle,  we  could  see 
eyes  gleaming  in  the  firelight.  In  the  distance 
we  heard  a  lion  roar,  and  from  far  off  came 
the  scream  of  some  stricken  animal,  splashing 
and  floundering  in  a  drinking-place.  Also,  from 
the  river,  came  a  great  grunting  of  rhinoceroses. 

In  the  morning,  after  having  had  our  sleep, 
we  crept  back  to  the  fire.  It  was  still  smoulder 
ing,  and  the  Fire-Men  were  gone.  We  made 
a  circle  through  the  forest  to  make  sure,  and 
then  we  ran  to  the  fire.  I  wanted  to  see  what 
it  was  like,  and  between  thumb  and  finger  I 
picked  up  a  glowing  coal.  My  cry  of  pain 
and  fear,  as  I  dropped  it,  stampeded  Lop-Ear 
into  the  trees,  and  his  flight  frightened  me 
after  him. 


166  BEFORE   ADAM 

The  next  time  we  came  back  more  cau 
tiously,  and  we  avoided  the  glowing  coals.  We 
fell  to  imitating  the  Fire-Men.  We  squatted 
down  by  the  fire,  and  with  heads  bent  forward 
on  our  knees,  made  believe  to  sleep.  Then 
we  mimicked  their  speech,  talking  to  each  other 
in  their  fashion  and  making  a  great  gibberish. 
I  remembered  seeing  the  wizened  old  hunter 
poke  the  fire  with  a  stick.  I  poked  the  fire 
with  a  stick,  turning  up  masses  of  live  coals  and 
clouds  of  white  ashes.  This  was  great  sport, 
and  soon  we  were  coated  white  with  the  ashes. 

It  was  inevitable  that  we  should  imitate  the 
Fire-Men  in  replenishing  the  fire.  We  tried 
it  first  with  small  pieces  of  wood.  It  was  a 
success.  The  wood  flamed  up  and  crackled, 
and  we  danced  and  gibbered  with  delight. 
Then  we  began  to  throw  on  larger  pieces  of 
wood.  We  put  on  more  and  more,  until  we 
had  a  mighty  fire.  We  dashed  excitedly  back 
and  forth,  dragging  dead  limbs  and  branches 
from  out  the  forest.  The  flames  soared  higher 
and  higher,  and  the  smoke-column  out-towered 
the  trees.  There  was  a  tremendous  snapping 


We,  too,  were  Fire-Men,  we  thought." 


BEFORE  ADAM 


169 


and  crackling  and  roaring.  It  was  the  most 
monumental  work  we  had  ever  effected  with 
our  hands,  and  we  were  proud  of  it.  We, 
too,  were  Fire-Men,  we  thought,  as  we  danced 
there,  white  gnomes  in  the  conflagration. 

The  dried  grass  and  underbrush  caught  fire, 
but  we  did  not  notice  it.  Suddenly  a  great  tree 
on  the  edge  of  the  open  space  burst  into  flames. 


S  We  looked  at 
it  with  startled  eyes.  The 
heat  of  it  drove  us  back.  An 
other  tree  caught,  and  another,  and  then  half 
a  dozen.  We  were  frightened.  The  mon 
ster  had  broken  loose.  We  crouched  down  in 
fear,  while  the  fire  ate  around  the  circle  and 
hemmed  us  in.  Into  Lop-Ear's  eyes  came  the 
plaintive  look  that  always  accompanied  incom- 


i  ;o  BEFORE   ADAM 

prehension,  and  I  know  that  in  my  eyes  must 
have  been  the  same  look.  We  huddled,  with 
our  arms  around  each  other,  until  the  heat 
began  to  reach  us  and  the  odor  of  burning 
hair  was  in  our  nostrils.  Then  we  made  a 
dash  of  it,  and  fled  away  westward  through  the 
forest,  looking  back  and  laughing  as  we  ran. 

By  the  middle  of  the  day  we  came  to  a  neck 
of  land,  made,  as  we  afterward  discovered, 
by  a  great  curve  of  the  river  that  almost  com 
pleted  a  circle.  Right  across  the  neck  lay 
bunched  several  low  and  partly  wooded  hills. 
Over  these  we  climbed,  looking  backward  at 
the  forest  which  had  become  a  sea  of  flame 
that  swept  eastward  before  a  rising  wind.  We 
continued  to  the  west,  following  the  river  bank, 
and  before  we  knew  it  we  were  in  the  midst  of 
the  abiding-place  of  the  Fire  People. 

This  abiding-place  was  a  splendid  strategic 
selection.  It  was  a  peninsula,  protected  on 
three  sides  by  the  curving  river.  On  only  one 
side  was  it  accessible  by  land.  This  was  the 
narrow  neck  of  the  peninsula,  and  here  the 
several  low  hills  were  a  natural  obstacle. 


BEFORE   ADAM  171 

Practically  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  world, 
the  Fire  People  must  have  here  lived  and  pros 
pered  for  a  long  time.  In  fact,  I  think  it  was 
their  prosperity  that  was  responsible  for  the 
subsequent  migration  that  worked  such  calamity 
upon  the  Folk.  The  Fire  People  must  have 
increased  in  numbers  until  they  pressed  uncom 
fortably  against  the  bounds  of  their  habitat. 
They  were  expanding,  and  in  the  course  of  their 
expanding  they  drove  the  Folk  before  them,  and 
settled  down  themselves  in  the  caves  and  occu 
pied  the  territory  that  we  had  occupied. 

But  Lop-Ear  and  I  little  dreamed  of  all  this 
when  we  found  ourselves  in  the  Fire  People's 
stronghold.  We  had  but  one  idea,  and  that 
was  to  get  away,  though  we  could  not  forbear 
humoring  our  curiosity  by  peeping  out  upon  the 
village.  For  the  first  time  we  saw  the  women 
and  children  of  the  Fire  People.  The  latter 
ran  for  the  most  part  naked,  though  the  former 

wore  skins  of  wild  animals. 

• 

The  Fire  People,  like  ourselves,  lived  in 
caves.  The  open  space  in  front  of  the  caves 
sloped  down  to  the  river,  and  in  the  open  space 


172  BEFORE   ADAM 

burned  many  small  fires.  But  whether  or 
not  the  Fire  People  cooked  their  food,  I  do  not 
know.  Lop-Ear  and  I  did  not  see  them  cook. 
Yet  it  is  my  opinion  that  they  surely  must  have 
performed  some  sort  of  rude  cookery.  Like 
us,  they  carried  water  in  gourds  from  the  river. 
There  was  much  coming  and  going,  and  loud 
cries  made  by  the  women  and  children.  The 
latter  played  about  and  cut  up  antics  quite  hi 
the  same  way  as  did  the  children  of  the  Folk, 
and  they  more  nearly  resembled  the  children 
of  the  Folk  than  did  the  grown  Fire  People 
resemble  the  grown  Folk. 

Lop-Ear  and  J  did  not  linger  long.  We  saw 
some  of  the  part-grown  boys  shooting  with 
bow  and  arrow,  and  we  sneaked  back  into  the 
thicker  forest  and  made  our  way  to  the  river. 
And  there  we  found  a  catamaran,  a  real  cata-, 
maran,  one  evidently  made  by  some  Fire-Man. 
The  two  logs  were  small  and  straight,  and 
were  lashed  together  by  means  of  tough  roots 
and  crosspieces  of  wood. 

This  time  the  idea  occurred  simultaneously 
to  us.  We  were  trying  to  escape  out  of  the 


BEFORE   ADAM  173 

Fire  People's  territory.  What  better  way  than 
by  crossing  the  river  on  these  logs  ?  We 
climbed  on  board  and  shoved  off.  A  sudden 
something  gripped  the  catamaran  and  flung  it 
downstream  violently  against  the  bank.  The 
abrupt  stoppage  almost  whipped  us  off  into  the 
water.  The  catamaran  was  tied  to  a  tree  by  a 
rope  of  twisted  roots.  This  we  untied  before 
shoving  off  again. 

By  the  time  we  had  paddled  well  out  into 
the  current,  we  had  drifted  so  far  downstream 
that  we  were  in  full  view  of  the  Fire  People's 
abiding-place.  So  occupied  were  we  with  our 
paddling,  our  eyes  fixed  upon  the  other  bank, 
that  we  knew  nothing  until  aroused  by  a  yell 
from  the  shore.  We  looked  around.  There 
were  the  Fire  People,  many  of  them,  looking 
at  us  and  pointing  at  us,  and  more  were  crawl 
ing  out  of  the  caves.  We  sat  up  to  watch,  and 
forgot  all  about  paddling.  There  was  a  great 
hullabaloo  on  the  shore.  Some  of  the  Fire- 
Men  discharged  their  bows  at  us,  and  a  few  of 
the  arrows  fell  near  us,  but  the  range  was  too 
great. 


BEFORE  ADAM 


It  was  a  great  day  for  Lop-Ear  and  me. 
To  the  east  the  conflagration  we  had  started 
was  rilling  half  the  sky  with  smoke.  And  here 
we  were,  perfectly  safe  in  the  middle  of  the 
river,  encircling  the  Fire  People's  stronghold. 
We  sat  and  laughed  at  them  as  we  dashed  by, 
swinging  south,  and  southeast  to  east,  and  even 
to  northeast,  and  then 
east  again,  southeast  and 
south  and  on  around  to 
the  west,  a  great  double 
curve  where  the  river 
nearly  tied  a  knot  in  it- 
self. 

As  we  swept  on  to  the 
west,  the  Fire  People  far 
behind,  a  familiar  scene 
flashed  upon  our  eyes. 
It   was    the    great 
drinking-place, 
where   we  had 
wandered  once 
or    twice     to 
watch  the  circus 


BEFORE   ADAM  175 

of  the  animals  when  they  came  down  to  drink. 
Beyond  it,  we  knew,  was  the  carrot  patch, 
and  beyond  that  the  caves  and  the  abiding- 
place  of  the  horde.  We  began  to  paddle  for 
the  bank  that  slid  swiftly  past,  and  before  we 
knew  it  we  were  down  upon  the  drinking- 
places  used  by  the  horde.  There  were  the 
women  and  children,  the  water  carriers,  a 
number  of  them,  filling  their  gourds.  At  sight 
of  us  they  stampeded  madly  up  the  run-ways, 
leaving  behind  them  a  trail  of  gourds  they  had 
dropped. 

We  landed,  and  of  course  we  neglected  to  tie 
up  the  catamaran,  which  floated  off  down  the 
river.  Right  cautiously  we  crept  up  a  run-way. 
The  Folk  had  all  disappeared  into  their  holes, 
though  here  and  there  we  could  see  a  face  peer 
ing  out  at  us.  There  was  no  sign  of  Red-Eye. 
We  were  home  again.  And  that  night  we  slept 
in  our  own  little  cave  high  up  on  the  cliff, 
though  first  we  had  to  evict  a  couple  of  pugna 
cious  youngsters  who  had  taken  possession. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  months  came  and  went.    The  drama 
and  tragedy  of  the  future  were  yet  to 
come  upon  the  stage,  and  in  the  mean 
time  we  pounded  nuts  and  lived.     It  was  a  good 
year,  I  remember,  for  nuts.  We  used  to  fill  gourds 
with  nuts  and  carry  them  to  the  pounding-places. 
We  placed  them  in  depressions  in  the  rock,  and, 
with  a  piece  of  rock  in  our  hands,  we  cracked 
them  and  ate  them  as  we  cracked. 

It  was  the  fall  of  the  year  when  Lop-Ear 
and  I  returned  from  our  long  adventure- 
journey,  and  the  winter  that  followed  was 
mild.  I  made  frequent  trips  to  the  neighbor 
hood  of  my  old  home-tree,  and  frequently  I 
searched  the  whole  territory  that  lay  between 
the  blueberry  swamp  and  the  mouth  of  the 
slough  where  Lop-Ear  and  I  had  learned 
navigation,  but  no  clew  could  I  get  of  the 
Swift  One.  She  had  disappeared.  And  I 

176 


BEFORE   ADAM  177 

wanted  her.  I  was  impelled  by  that  hunger 
which  I  have  mentioned,  and  which  was  akin 
to  physical  hunger,  albeit  it  came  often  upon 
me  when  my  stomach  was  full.  But  all  my 
search  was  vain. 

Life  was  not  monotonous  at  the  caves, 
however.  There  was  Red-Eyerto  be  considered. 
Lop-Ear  and  I  never  knew  a  moment's  peace 
except  when  we  were  in  our  own  little  cave. 
In  spite  of  the  enlargement  of  the  entrance  we 
had  made,  it  was  still  a  tight  squeeze  for  us  to 
get  in.  And  though  from  time  to  time  we  con 
tinued  to  enlarge,  it  was  still  too  small  for  Red- 
Eye's  monstrous  body.  But  he  never  stormed 
our  cave  again.  He  had  learned  the  lesson 
well,  and  he  carried  on  his  neck  a  bulging  lump 
to  show  where  I  had  hit  him  with  the  rock. 
This  lump  never  went  away,  and  it  was  promi 
nent  enough  to  be  seen  at  a  distance.  I  often 
took  great  delight  in  watching  that  evidence  of 
my  handiwork;  and  sometimes,  when  I  was 
myself  assuredly  safe,  the  sight  of  it  caused  me 
to  laugh. 

While  the  other  Folk  would  not   have  come 


178  BEFORE   ADAM 

to  our  rescue  had  Red-Eye  proceeded  to  tear 
Lop-Ear  and  me  to  pieces  before  their  eyes, 
nevertheless  they  sympathized  with  us.  Pos 
sibly  it  was  not  sympathy  but  the  way  they 
expressed  their  hatred  for  Red-Eye;  at  any 
rate  they  always  warned  us  of  his  approach. 
Whether  in  the  forest,  at  the  drinking-places, 
or  in  the  open  space  before  the  caves,  they  were 
always  quick  to  warn  us.  Thus  we  had  the  ad 
vantage  of  many  eyes  in  our  feud  with  Red-Eye, 
the  atavism. 

Once  he  nearly  got  me.  It  was  early  in  the 
morning,  and  the  Folk  were  not  yet  up.  The 
surprise  was  complete.  I  was  cut  off  from  the 
way  up  the  cliff  to  my  cave.  Before  I  knew  it 
I  had  dashed  into  the  double-cave,  —  the  cave 
where  Lop-Ear  had  first  eluded  me  long  years 
before,  and  where  old  Saber-Tooth  had  come 
to  discomfiture  when  he  pursued  the  two  Folk. 
By  the  time  I  had  got  through  the  connecting 
passage  between  the  two  caves,  I  discovered 
that  Red-Eye  was  not  following  me.  The 
next  moment  he  charged  into  the  cave  from  the 
outside.  I  slipped  back  through  the  passage, 


BEFORE   ADAM  179 

and  he  charged  out  and  around  and  in  upon 
me  again.  I  merely  repeated  my  performance 
of  slipping  through  the  passage. 

He  kept  me  there  half  a  day  before  he  gave 
up.  After  that,  when  Lop-Ear  and  I  were 
reasonably  sure  of  gaming  the  double-cave,  we 
did  not  retreat  up  the  cliff  to  our  own  cave 
when  Red-Eye  came  upon  the  scene.  All  we 
did  was  to  keep  an  eye  on  him  and  see  that  he 
did  not  cut  across  our  line  of  retreat. 

It  was  during  this  winter  that  Red-Eye 
killed  his  latest  wife  with  abuse  and  repeated 
beatings.  I  have  called  him  an  atavism,  but 
in  this  he  was  worse  than  an  atavism,  for  the 
males  of  the  lower  animals  do  not  maltreat  and 
murder  their  mates.  In  this  I  take  it  that 
Red-Eye,  in  spite  of  his  tremendous  atavistic 
tendencies,  foreshadowed  the  coming  of  man, 
for  it  is  the  males  of  the  human  species  only  that 
murder  their  mates. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  with  the  doing  away 
of  one  wife  Red-Eye  proceeded  to  get  another. 
He  decided  upon  the  Singing  One.  She  was 
the  granddaughter  of  old  Marrow-Bone,  and 


i8o  BEFORE   ADAM 

the  daughter  of  the  Hairless  One.  She  was  a 
young  thing,  greatly  given  to  singing  at  the 
mouth  of  her  cave  in  the  twilight,  and  she  had 
but  recently  mated  with  Crooked-Leg.  He  was 
a  quiet  individual,  molesting  no  one  and  not 
given  to  bickering  with  his  fellows.  He  was 
no  fighter  anyway.  He  was  small  and  lean, 
and  not  so  active  on  his  legs  as  the  rest 
of  us. 

Red-Eye  never  committed  a  more  outrageous 
deed.  It  was  in  the  quiet  at  the  end  of  the 
day,  when  we  began  to  congregate  in  the  open 
space  before  climbing  into  our  caves.  Sud 
denly  the  Singing  One  dashed  up  a  run-way 
from  a  drinking-place,  pursued  by  Red-Eye. 
She  ran  to  her  husband.  Poor  little  Crooked-Leg 
was  terribly  scared.  But  he  was  a  hero.  He 
knew  that  death  was  upon  him,  yet  he  did  not 
run  away.  He  stood  up,  and  chattered,  bristled, 
and  showed  his  teeth. 

Red-Eye  roared  with  rage.  It  was  an  offence 
to  him  that  any  of  the  Folk  should  dare  to 
withstand  him.  His  hand  shot  out  and  clutched 
Crooked-Leg  by  the  neck.  The  latter  sank  his 


BEFORE   ADAM  181 

teeth  into  Red-Eye's  arm;  but  the  next  moment, 
with  a  broken  neck,  Crooked-Leg  was  flounder 
ing  and  squirming  on  the  ground.  The  Sing 
ing  One  screeched  and  gibbered.  Red-Eye 
seized  her  by  the  hair  of  her  head  and  dragged 
her  toward  his  cave.  He  handled  her  roughly 
when  the  climb  began,  and  he  dragged  and 
hauled  her  up  into  the  cave. 

We  were  very  angry,  insanely,  vociferously  an 
gry.  Beating  our  chests,  bristling,  and  gnashing 
our  teeth,  we  gathered  together  in  our  rage.  We 
felt  the  prod  of  gregarious  instinct,  the  drawing 
together  as  though  for  united  action,  the  impulse 
toward  cooperation.  In  dim  ways  this  need 
for  united  action  was  impressed  upon  us.  But 
there  was  no  way  to  achieve  it  because  there 
was  no  way  to  express  it.  We  did  not  turn  to, 
all  of  us,  and  destroy  Red-Eye,  because  we 
lacked  a  vocabulary.  We  were  vaguely  think 
ing  thoughts  for  which  there  were  no  thought- 
symbols.  These  thought-symbols  were  yet  to 
be  slowly  and  painfully  invented. 

We  tried  to  freight  sound  with  the  vague 
thoughts  that  flitted  like  shadows  through  our 


182  BEFORE   ADAM 

consciousness.  The  Hairless  One  began  to 
chatter  loudly.  By  his  noises  he  expressed 
anger  against  Red-Eye  and  desire  to  hurt 
Red-Eye.  Thus  far  he  got,  and  thus  far  we 
understood.  But  when  he  tried  to  express  the 
cooperative  impulse  that  stirred  within  him, 
his  noises  became  gibberish.  Then  Big-Face, 
with  brow-bristling  and  chest-pounding,  began 
to  chatter.  One  after  another  of  us  joined  in 
the  orgy  of  rage,  until  even  old  Marrow-Bone 
was  mumbling  and  spluttering  with  his  cracked 
voice  and  i withered  lips.  Some  one  seized  a 
stick  and  began  pounding  a  log.  In  a  moment 
he  had  struck  a  rhythm.  Unconsciously,  our 
yells  and  exclamations  yielded  to  this  rhythm. 
It  had  a  soothing  effect  upon  us;  and  before  we 
knew  it,  our  rage  forgotten,  we  were  in  the  full 
swing  of  a  hee-hee  council. 

These  hee-hee  councils  splendidly  illustrate 
the  inconsecutiveness  and  inconsequentiality 
of  the  Folk.  Here  were  we,  drawn  together  by 
mutual  rage  and  the  impulse  toward  coopera 
tion,  led  off  into  forgetfulness  by  the  establish 
ment  of  a  rude  rhythm.  We  were  sociable  and 


BEFORE   ADAM  183 

gregarious,  and  these  singing  and  laughing 
councils  satisfied  us.  In  ways  the  hee-hee 
council  was  an  adumbration  of  the  councils 
of  primitive  man,  and  of  the  great  national 
assemblies  and  international  conventions  of 
latter-day  man.  But  we  Folk  of  the  Younger 
World  lacked  speech,  and  whenever  we  were 
so  drawn  together  we  precipitated  babel,  out 
of  which  arose  a  unanimity  of  rhythm  that 
contained  within  itself  the  essentials  of  art  yet 
to  come.  It  was  art  nascent. 

There  was  nothing  long-continued  about  these 
rhythms  that  we  struck.  A  rhythm  was  soon 
lost,  and  pandemonium  reigned  until  we  could 
find  the  rhythm  again  or  start  a  new  one. 
Sometimes  half  a  dozen  rhythms  would  be 
swinging  simultaneously,  each  rhythm  backed 
by  a  group  that  strove  ardently  to  drown  out 
the  other  rhythms. 

In  the  intervals  of  pandemonium,  each 
chattered,  cut  up,  hooted,  screeched,  and 
danced,  himself  sufficient  unto  himself,  filled 
with  his  own  ideas  and  volitions  to  the  exclu 
sion  of  all  others,  a  veritable  centre  of  the 


184  BEFORE   ADAM 

universe,  divorced  for  the  time  being  from  any 
unanimity  with  the  other  universe-centres  leap 
ing  and  yelling  around  him.  Then  would  come 
the  rhythm  —  a  clapping  of  hands;  the  beating 
of  a  stick  upon  a  log;  the  example  of  one  that 
leaped  with  repetitions ;  or  the  chanting  of  one 
that  uttered,  explosively  and  regularly,  with 
inflection  that  rose  and  fell,  "A-bang,  a-bang ! 
A-bang,  a-bang!"  One  after  another  of  the 
self-centred  Folk  would  yield  to  it,  and  soon  all 
would  be  dancing  or  chanting  in  chorus.  "Ha- 
ah,  ha-ah,  ha-ah-ha!"  was  one  of  our  favorite 
choruses,  and  another  was,  "Eh-wah,  eh-wah, 
eh-wah-hah!" 

And  so,  with  mad  antics,  leaping,  reeling, 
and  over-balancing,  we  danced  and  sang  in  the 
sombre  twilight  of  the  primeval  world,  inducing 
forgetfulness,  achieving  unanimity,  and  work 
ing  ourselves  up  into  sensuous  frenzy.  And 
so  it  was  that  our  rage  against  Red-Eye  was 
soothed  away  by  art,  and  we  screamed  the  wild 
choruses  of  the  hee-hee  council  until  the  night 
warned  us  of  its  terrors,  and  we  crept  away 
to  our  holes  in  the  rocks,  calling  softly  to  one 


BEFORE   ADAM 


185 


another,  while  the  stars  came  out 
and  darkness  settled  down. 

We  were  afraid  only  of  the  dark. 
We  had  no  germs  of  religion,  no 
conceptions    of  an    unseen   world. 
We  knew  only  the  real  world,  and 
the  things  we  feared  were  the  real 
things,   the   concrete    dangers,   the 
flesh-and-blood  animals  that  preyed. 
It  was  they  that  made  us   afraid  of 
the  dark,  for  darkness  was  the 
time  of  the  hunting  animals.     It 
was  then  that  they  came  out  of 
their  lairs   and    pounced    upon 
one    from    the    dark   wherein 
they  lurked  invisible. 

Possibly  it  was  out  of  this 
fear  of  the  real  denizens  of 
the  dark  that  the  fear  of  the 
unreal  denizens  was  later  to 
develop  and  to  culminate  in  a 
mighty  unseen  world.  As  imagination  grew  it 
is  likely  that  the  fear  of  death  increased  until 
the  Folk  that  were  to  come  projected  this  fear 


whole  and 


1 86  BEFORE   ADAM 

into  the  dark  and  peopled  it  with  spirits.  I 
think  the  Fire  People  had  already  begun  to 
be  afraid  of  the  dark  in  this  fashion;  but  the 
reasons  we  Folk  had  for  breaking  up  our 
hee-hee  councils  and  fleeing  to  our  holes  were 
old  Saber-Tooth,  the  lions  and  the  jackals,  the 
wild  dogs  and  the  wolves,  and  all  the  hungry, 
meat-eating  breeds. 


CHAPTER  XV 

LOP-EAR  got  married.    It  was  the  second 
winter  after  our  adventure-journey,  and 
it  was  most  unexpected.     He  gave  me 
no  warning.     The  first  I  knew  was  one  twi 
light  when  I  climbed  the  cliff  to  our  cave.     I 
squeezed  into  the  entrance  and  there  I  stopped. 
There  was  no  room  for  me.     Lop-Ear  and  his 
mate  were   in   possession,    and   she   was   none 
other  than  my  sister,  the  daughter  of  my  step 
father,  the  Chatterer. 

I  tried  to  force  my  way  in.  There  was  space 
only  for  two,  and  that  space  was  already  occu 
pied.  Also,  they  had  me  at  a  disadvantage, 
and,  what  of  the  scratching  and  hair-pulling  I 
received,  I  was  glad  to  retreat.  I  slept  that 
night,  and  for  many  nights,  in  the  connecting 
passage  of  the  double-cave.  From  my  expe 
rience  it  seemed  reasonably  safe.  As  the  two 
Folk  had  dodged  old  Saber-Tooth,  and  as  I 

187 


i88 


BEFORE   ADAM 


had  dodged  Red-Eye,  so  it  seemed  to  me  that 
I  could  dodge  the  hunting  animals  by  going 
back  and  forth  between  the  two  caves. 

I  had  forgotten  the  wild  dogs.  They  were 
small  enough  to  go  through  any  passage  that 
I  could  squeeze  through.  One  night  they  nosed 
me  out.  Had  they  entered  both  caves  at  the 
same  time  they  would  have  got  me.  As  it 
was,  followed  by  some  of  them  through 
the  passage,  I  dashed  out  the 
mouth  of  the  other  cave.  Outside 
were  the  rest  of  the  wild  dogs. 
They  sprang  for  me  as  I  sprang 
for  the  clifF-wall  and  began  to 
climb.  One  of  them,  a  lean 
and  hungry  brute,  caught 
me  in  mid-leap.  His  teeth 
sank  into  my  thigh-muscles, 
and  he  nearly  dragged  me 
back.  He  held  on,  but  I 
made  no  effort  to  dislodge  him, 
devoting  my  whole  effort  to  climb 
ing  out  of  \  reach  of  the  rest  of  the  brutes. 
Not  until  I  was  safe  from  them  did  I  turn 


BEFORE   ADAM  189 

my  attention  to  that  live  agony  on  my  thigh. 
And  then,  a  dozen  feet  above  the  snapping  pack 
that  leaped  and  scrambled  against  the  wall 
and  fell  back,  I  got  the  dog  by  the  throat  and 
slowly  throttled  him.  I  was  a  long  time  doing 
it.  He  clawed  and  ripped  my  hair  and  hide 
with  his  hind-paws,  and  ever  he  jerked  and 
lunged  with  his  weight  to  drag  me  from 
the  wall. 

At  last  his  teeth  opened  and  released  my  torn 
flesh.  I  carried  his  body  up  the  cliff  with  me, 
and  perched  out  the  night  in  the  entrance  of 
my  old  cave,  wherein  were  Lop-Ear  and  my 
sister.  But  first  I  had  to  endure  a  storm  of 
abuse  from  the  aroused  horde  for  being  the 
cause  of  the  disturbance.  I  had  my  revenge. 
From  time  to  time,  as  the  noise  of  the  pack 
below  eased  down,  I  dropped  a  rock  and 
started  it  up  again.  Whereupon,  from  all 
around,  the  abuse  of  the  exasperated  Folk 
began  afresh.  In  the  morning  I  shared  the 
dog  with  Lop-Ear  and  his  wife,  and  for  several 
days  the  three  of  us  were  neither  vegetarians 
nor  fruitarians. 


190  BEFORE   ADAM 

Lop-Ear's  marriage  was  not  a  happy  one, 
and  the  consolation  about  it  is  that  it  did  not 
last  very  long.  Neither  he  nor  I  was  happy 
during  that  period.  I  was  lonely.  I  suffered 
the  inconvenience  of  being  cast  out  of  my  safe 
little  cave,  and  somehow  I  did  not  make  it  up 
with  any  other  of  the  young  males.  I  suppose 
my  long-continued  chumming  with  Lop-Ear 
had  become  a  habit. 

I  might  have  married,  it  is  true;  and  most 
likely  I  should  have  married  had  it  not  been 
for  the  dearth  of  females  in  the  horde.  This 
dearth,  it  is  fair  to  assume,  was  caused  by  the 
exorbitance  of  Red-Eye,  and  it  illustrates  the 
menace  he  was  to  the  existence  of  the  horde. 
Then  there  was  the  Swift  One,  whom  I  had  not 
forgotten. 

At  any  rate,  during  the  period  of  Lop-Ear's 
marriage  I  knocked  about  from  pillar  to  post, 
in  danger  every  night  that  I  slept,  and  never 
comfortable.  One  of  the  Folk  died,  and  his 
widow  was  taken  into  the  cave  of  another  one 
of  the  Folk.  I  took  possession  of  the  aban 
doned  cave,  but  it  was  wide-mouthed,  and  after 


BEFORE   ADAM  191 

Red-Eye  nearly  trapped  me  in  it  one  day,  I 
returned  to  sleeping  in  the  passage  of  the 
double-cave.  During  the  summer,  however, 
I  used  to  stay  away  from  the  caves  for  weeks, 
sleeping  in  a  tree-shelter  I  made  near  the 
mouth  of  the  slough. 

I  have  said  that  Lop-Ear  was  not  happy. 
My  sister  was  the  daughter  of  the  Chatterer, 
and  she  made  Lop-Ear's  life  miserable  for  him. 
In  no  other  cave  was  there  so  much  squabbling 
and  bickering.  If  Red-Eye  was  a  Bluebeard, 
Lop-Ear  was  hen-pecked;  and  I  imagine  that 
Red-Eye  was  too  shrewd  ever  to  covet  Lop- 
Ear's  wife. 

Fortunately  for  Lop-Ear,  she  died.  An 
unusual  thing  happened  that  summer.  Late, 
almost  at  the  end  of  it,  a  second  crop  of  the 
stringy-rooted  carrots  sprang  up.  These  un 
expected  second-crop  roots  were  young  and 
juicy  and  tender,  and  for  some  time  the  carrot- 
patch  was  the  favorite  feeding-place  of  the 
horde.  One  morning,  early,  several  score  of 
us  were  there  making  our  breakfast.  On  one 
side  of  me  was  the  Hairless  One.  Beyond  him 


ig2  BEFORE   ADAM 

were  his  father  and  son,  old  Marrow-Bone 
and  Long-Lip.  On  the  other  side  of  me  were 
my  sister  and  Lop-Ear,  she  being  next  to  me. 

There  was  no  warning.  On  the  sudden, 
both  the  Hairless  One  and  my  sister  sprang 
and  screamed.  At  the  same  instant  I  heard  the 
thud  of  the  arrows  that  transfixed  them.  The 
next  instant  they  were  down  on  the  ground, 
floundering  and  gasping,  and  the  rest  of  us 
were  stampeding  for  the  trees.  An  arrow 
drove  past  me  and  entered  the  ground,  its 
feathered  shaft  vibrating  and  oscillating  from 
the  impact  of  its  arrested  flight.  I  remember 
clearly  how  I  swerved  as  I  ran,  to  go  past  it, 
and  that  I  gave  it  a  needlessly  wide  berth.  I 
must  have  shied  at  it  as  a  horse  shies  at  an 
object  it  fears. 

Lop-Ear  took  a  smashing  fall  as  he  ran 
beside  me.  An  arrow  had  driven  through  the 
calf  of  his  leg  and  tripped  him.  He  tried  to 
run,  but  was  tripped  and  thrown  by  it  a  second 
time.  He  sat  up,  crouching,  trembling  with 
fear,  and  called  to  me  pleadingly.  I  dashed 
back.  He  showed  me  the  arrow.  I  caught 


BEFORE   ADAM  193 

hold  of  it  to  pull  it  out,  but  the  consequent 
hurt  made  him  seize  my  hand  and  stop  me. 
A  flying  arrow  passed  between  us.  Another 
struck  a  rock,  splintered,  and  fell  to  the 
ground.  This  was  too  much.  I  pulled,  sud 
denly,  with  all  my  might.  Lop-Ear  screamed 
as  the  arrow  came  out,  and  struck  at  me 
angrily.  But  the  next  moment  we  were  in 
full  flight  again. 

I  looked  back.  Old  Marrow-Bone,  deserted 
and  far  behind,  was  tottering  silently  along  in 
his  handicapped  race  with  death.  Sometimes 
he  almost  fell,  and  once  he  did  fall;  but  no 
more  arrows  were  coming.  He  scrambled 
weakly  to  his  feet.  Age  burdened  him  heavily, 
but  he  did  not  want  to  die.  The  three  Fire- 
Men,  who  were  now  running  forward  from 
their  forest  ambush,  could  easily  have  got  him, 
but  they  did  not  try.  Perhaps  he  was  too  old 
and  tough.  But  they  did  want  the  Hairless 
One  and  my  sister,  for  as  I  looked  back  from 
the  trees  I  could  see  the  Fire-Men  beating  in 
their  heads  with  rocks.  One  of  the  Fire-Men 
was  the  wizened  old  hunter  who  limped. 


i94  BEFORE   ADAM 

We  went  on  through  the  trees  toward  the 
caves  —  an  excited  and  disorderly  mob  that 
drove  before  it  to  their  holes  all  the  small  life 
of  the  forest,  and  that  set  the  blue-jays  scream 
ing  impudently.  Now  that  there  was  no  im 
mediate  danger,  Long-Lip  waited  for  his  grand 
father,  Marrow-Bone ;  and  with  the  gap  of  a 
generation  between  them,  the  old  fellow  and 
the  youth  brought  up  our  rear. 

And  so  it  was  that  Lop-Ear  became  a  bachelor 
once  more.  That  night  I  slept  with  him  in  the 
old  cave,  and  our  old  life  of  chumming  began 
again.  The  loss  of  his  mate  seemed  to  cause 
him  no  grief.  At  least  he  showed  no  signs  of 
it,  nor  of  need  for  her.  It  was  the  wound  in 
his  leg  that  seemed  to  bother  him,  and  it  was 
all  of  a  week  before  he  got  back  again  to  his 
old  spryness. 

Marrow-Bone  was  the  only  old  member  in 
the  horde.  Sometimes,  on  looking  back  upon 
him,  when  the  vision  of  him  is  most  clear,  I 
note  a  striking  resemblance  between  him  and 
the  father  of  my  father's  gardener.  The 
gardener's  father  was  very  old,  very  wrinkled 


BEFORE   ADAM  195 

and  withered;  and  for  all  the  world,  when  he 
peered  through  his  tiny,  bleary  eyes  and  mum 
bled  with  his  toothless  gums,  he  looked  and 
acted  like  old  Marrow-Bone.  This  resemblance, 
as  a  child,  used  to  frighten  me.  I  always  ran 
when  I  saw  the  old  man  tottering  along  on 
his  two  canes.  Old  Marrow-Bone  even  had  a 
bit  of  sparse  and  straggly  white  beard  that 
seemed  identical  with  the  whiskers  of  the  old 
man. 

As  I  have  said,  Marrow-Bone  was  the  only 
old  member  of  the  horde.  He  was  an  excep 
tion.  The  Folk  never  lived  to  old  age.  Mid 
dle  age  was  fairly  rare.  Death  by  violence  was 
the  common  way  of  death.  They  died  as  my 
father  had  died,  as  Broken-Tooth  had  died, 
as  my  sister  and  the  Hairless  One  had  just 
died  —  abruptly  and  brutally,  in  the  full  pos 
session  of  their  faculties,  in  the  full  swing 
and  rush  of  life.  Natural  death  ?  To  die 
violently  was  the  natural  way  of  dying  in  those 
days. 

No  one  died  of  old  age  among  the  Folk.  I 
never  knew  of  a  case.  Even  Marrow-Bone  did 


196  BEFORE   ADAM 

not  die  that  way,  and  he  was  the  only  one  in 
my  generation  who  had  the  chance.  A  bad 
crippling,  any  serious  accidental  or  temporary 
impairment  of  the  faculties,  meant  swift  death. 
As  a  rule,  these  deaths  were  not  witnessed. 
Members  of  the  horde  simply  dropped  out  of 
sight.  They  left  the  caves  in  the  morning, 
and  they  never  came  back.  They  disappeared 
—  into  the  ravenous  maws  of  the  hunting 
creatures. 

This  inroad  of  the  Fire  People  on  the  carrot- 
patch  was  the  beginning  of  the  end,  though 
we  did  not  know  it.  The  hunters  of  the  Fire 
People  began  to  appear  more  frequently  as 
the  time  went  by.  They  came  in  twos  and 
threes,  creeping  silently  through  the  forest, 
with  their  flying  arrows  able  to  annihilate  dis 
tance  and  bring  down  prey  from  the  top  of 
the  loftiest  tree  without  themselves  climbing 
into  it.  The  bow  and  arrow  was  like  an  enor 
mous  extension  of  their  leaping  and  striking 
muscles,  so  that,  virtually,  they  could  leap  and 
kill  at  a  hundred  feet  and  more.  This  made 
them  far  more  terrible  than  Saber-Tooth  him- 


BEFORE   ADAM 


197 


self.  And  then  they  were  very  wise.  They 
had  speech  that  enabled  them  more  effectively 
to  reason,  and  in  addition  they  understood 
cooperation. 

We  Folk  came  to  be  very  circumspect  when 
we  w^ere  in  the  forest.  We  were  more  alert 
and  vigilant  and  timid.  No  longer  were  the 
trees  a  protection  to  be  relied  upon.  No 
longer  could 
we  perch  on 
a  branch  and 
laugh  down  at 
our  carnivorous 
enemies  on  the 
ground.  The 
Fire  People 
were  carnivor 
ous,  with  claws 
and  fangs  a 
hundred  feet 
long,  the  most 
terrible  of  all 
the  hunting  animals  that 
ranged  the  primeval  world. 


198  BEFORE   ADAM 

One  morning,  before  the  Folk  had  dispersed 
to  the  forest,  there  was  a  panic  among  the 
water-carriers  and  those  who  had  gone  down 
to  the  river  to  drink.  The  whole  horde  fled 
to  the  caves.  It  was  our  habit,  at  such  times, 
to  flee  first  and  investigate  afterward.  We 
waited  in  the  mouths  of  our  caves  and  watched. 
After  some  time  a  Fire-Man  stepped  cautiously 
into  the  open  space.  It  was  the  little  wizened 
old  hunter.  He  stood  for  a  long  time  and 
watched  us,  looking  our  caves  and  the  cliff- 
wall  up  and  down.  He  descended  one  of  the 
run-ways  to  a  drinking-place,  returning  a  few 
minutes  later  by  another  run-way.  Again  he 
stood  and  watched  us  carefully,  for  a  long  time. 
Then  he  turned  on  his  heel  and  limped  into 
the  forest,  leaving  us  calling  querulously  and 
plaintively  to  one  another  from  the  cave- 
mouths. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

I  FOUND   her  down   in  the  old  neighbor 
hood  near  the  blueberry  swamp,  where  my 
mother  lived   and  where  Lop-Ear  and   I 
had    built   our   first   tree-shelter.     It   was    un 
expected.     As  I  came  under  the  tree  I  heard 
the  familiar  soft  sound  and  looked  up.     There 
she  was,  the  Swift  One,  sitting  on  a  limb  and 
swinging  her  legs  back  and  forth  as  she  looked 
at  me. 

I  stood  still  for  some  time.  The  sight  of 
her  had  made  me  very  happy.  And  then  an 
unrest  and  a  pain  began  to  creep  in  on  this 
happiness.  I  started  to  climb  the  tree  after 
her,  and  she  retreated  slowly  out  the  limb. 
Just  as  I  reached  for  her,  she  sprang  through 
the  air  and  landed  in  the  branches  of  the  next 
tree.  From  amid  the  rustling  leaves  she  peeped 
out  at  me  and  made  soft  sounds.  I  leaped 
straight  for  her,  and  after  an  exciting  chase  the 

199 


200  BEFORE   ADAM 

situation  was  duplicated,  for  there  she  was, 
making  soft  sounds  and  peeping  out  from  the 
leaves  of  a  third  tree. 

It  was  borne  in  upon  me  that  somehow  it 
was  different  now  from  the  old  days  before 
Lop-Ear  and  I  had  gone  on  our  adventure- 
journey.  I  wanted  her,  and  I  knew  that  I 
wanted  her.  And  she  knew  it,  too.  That 
was  why  she  would  not  let  me  come  near  her. 
I  forgot  that  she  was  truly  the  Swift  One,  and 
that  in  the  art  of  climbing  she  had  been  my 
teacher.  I  pursued  her  from  tree  to  tree,  and 
ever  she  eluded  me,  peeping  back  at  me  with 
kindly  eyes,  making  soft  sounds,  and  dancing 
and  leaping  and  teetering  before  me  just  out 
of  reach.  The  more  she  eluded  me,  the  more 
I  wanted  to  catch  her,  and  the  lengthening 
shadows  of  the  afternoon  bore  witness  to  the 
futility  of  my  effort. 

As  I  pursued  her,  or  sometimes  rested  in  an 
adjoining  tree  and  watched  her,  I  noticed  the 
change  in  her.  She  was  larger,  heavier,  more 
grown-up.  Her  lines  were  rounder,  her  muscles 
fuller,  and  there  was  about  her  that  indefinite 


BEFORE   ADAM  201 

something  of  maturity  that  was  new  to  her  and 
that  incited  me  on.  Three  years  she  had  been 
gone  —  three  years  at  the  very  least,  and  the 
change  in  her  was  marked.  I  say  three  years; 
it  is  as  near  as  I  can  measure  the  time.  A 
fourth  year  may  have  elapsed,  which  I  have 
confused  with  the  happenings  of  the  other 
three  years.  The  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more 
confident  I  am  that  it  must  be  four  years  that 
she  was  away. 

Where  she  went,  why  she  went,  and  what 
happened  to  her  during  that  time,  I  do  not 
know.  There  was  no  way  for  her  to  tell  me, 
any  more  than  there  was  a  way  for  Lop-Ear 
and  me  to  tell  the  Folk  what  we  had  seen  when 
we  were  away.  Like  us,  the  chance  is  she  had 
gone  off  on  an  adventure-journey,  and  by  her 
self.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible  that 
Red-Eye  may  have  been  the  cause  of  her  going. 
It  is  quite  certain  that  he  must  have  come  upon 
her  from  time  to  time,  wandering  in  the  woods ; 
and  if  he  had  pursued  her  there  is  no  question 
but  that  it  would  have  been  sufficient  to 
drive  her  away.  From  subsequent  events,  I 


202 


BEFORE   ADAM 


am  led  to  believe  that  she  must  have  travelled 
far  to  the  south,  across  a  range  of  mountains 
and  down  to  the  banks  of  a  strange  river,  away 
from  any  of  her  kind.  Many  Tree  People 
lived  down  there,  and  I  think  it  must  have  been 
they  who  finally  drove  her  back  to  the  horde 
and  to  me.  My  reasons  for  this  I  shall  ex 
plain  later. 

The  shadows  grew  longer,  and  I  pursued 
more  ardently  than  ever,  and  still  I  could  not 
catch  her.  She  made  believe  that  she  was 
trying  desperately  to  escape  me,  and  all  the 
time  she  managed  to  keep  just  beyond  reach.  I 
forgot  everything — time, 
ing  of  night,  and  my 
ing.  enemies.  I  was  insane 
of  her,  and  with 
because  she 
not  let  me  come 
her.  It  was  strange 
this  anger  against 
her  seemed  to  be 
part  of  my  de 
sire  for  her. 


the      oncom- 
meat-eat- 
with     love 
anger,  too, 
would 
up  with 
how 


BEFORE   ADAM  203 

As  I  have  said,  I  forgot  everything.  In 
racing  across  an  open  space  I  ran  full  tilt  upon 
a  colony  of  snakes.  They  did  not  deter  me. 
I  was  mad.  They  struck  at  me,  but  I  ducked 
and  dodged  and  ran  on.  Then  there  was  a 
python  that  ordinarily  would  have  sent  me 
screeching  to  a  tree-top.  He  did  run  me  into 
a  tree;  but  the  Swift  One  was  going  out  of 
sight,  and  I  sprang  back  to  the  ground  and 
went  on.  It  was  a  close  shave.  Then  there 
was  my  old  enemy,  the  hyena.  From  my  con 
duct  he  was  sure  something  was  going  to  hap 
pen,  and  he  followed  me  for  an  hour.  Once 
we  exasperated  a  band  of  wild  pigs,  and  they 
took  after  us.  The  Swift  One  dared  a  wide 
leap  between  trees  that  was  too  much  for  jne. 
I  had  to  take  to  the  ground.  There  were  the 
pigs.  I  didn't  care.  I  struck  the  earth  within 
a  yard  of  the  nearest  one.  They  flanked 
me  as  I  ran,  and  chased  me  into  two  different 
trees  out  of  the  line  of  my  pursuit  of  the  Swift 
One.  I  ventured  the  ground  again,  doubled 
back,  and  crossed  a  wide  open  space,  with  the 
whole  band  grunting,  bristling,  and  tusk- 
gnashing  at  my  heels. 


204  BEFORE   ADAM 

If  I  had  tripped  or  stumbled  in  that  open 
space,  there  would  have  been  no  chance  for 
me.  But  I  didn't.  And  I  didn't  care  whether 
I  did  or  not.  I  was  in  such  mood  that  I  would 
have  faced  old  Saber-Tooth  himself,  or  a  score 
of  arrow-shooting  Fire  People.  Such  was  the 
madness  of  love  .  .  .  with  me.  With  the 
Swift  One  it  was  different.  She  was  very  wise. 
She  did  not  take  any  real  risks,  and  I  re 
member,  on  looking  back  across  the  centuries 
to  that  wild  love-chase,  that  when  the  pigs 
delayed  me  she  did  not  run  away  very  fast, 
but  waited,  rather,  for  me  to  take  up  the 
pursuit  again.  Also,  she  directed  her  retreat 
before  me,  going  always  in  the  direction  she 
wanted  to  go. 

At  last  came  the  dark.  She  led  me  around 
the  mossy  shoulder  of  a  canyon  wall  that  out- 
jutted  among  the  trees.  After  that  we  pene 
trated  a  dense  mass  of  underbrush  that  scraped 
and  ripped  me  in  passing.  But  she  never 
ruffled  a  hair.  She  knew  the  way.  In  the 
midst  of  the  thicket  was  a  large  oak.  I  was 
very  close  to  her  when  she  climbed  it;  and  in 


Large  trees  are  about  us,  and  from  their  branches  hang  gray 
filaments  of  moss." 


BEFORE   ADAM  205 

the  forks,  in  the  nest-shelter  I  had  sought  so 
long  and  vainly,  I  caught  her. 

The  hyena  had  taken  our  trail  again,  and  he 
now  sat  down  on  the  ground  and  made  hungry 
noises.  But  we  did  not  mind,  and  we  laughed  at 
him  when  he  snarled  and  went  away  through 
the  thicket.  It  was  the  spring-time,  and  the 
night  noises  were  many  and  varied.  As  was 
the  custom  at  that  time  of  the  year,  there  was 
much  righting  among  the  animals.  From  the 
nest  we  could  hear  the  squealing  and  neighing 
of  wild  horses,  the  trumpeting  of  elephants,  and 
the  roaring  of  lions.  But  the  moon  came  out, 
and  the  air  was  warm,  and  we  laughed  and  were 
unafraid. 

I  remember,  next  morning,  that  we  came 
upon  two  ruffled  cock-birds  that  fought  so 
ardently  that  I  went  right  up  to  them  and 
caught  them  by  their  necks.  Thus  did  the 
Swift  One  and  I  get  our  wedding  breakfast. 
They  were  deli 
cious.  It  was  easy 
to  catch  birds  in 
the  spring  of  the 


206 


BEFORE   ADAM 


year.  There  was 
one  night  that 
year  when  two  elk 
fought  in  the 
moonlight,  while 
the  Swift  One  and 
I  watched  from  the 
trees;  and  we  saw 
a  lion  and  lioness 
crawl  up  to  them 
unheeded,  and  kill 
them  as  they 
fought. 

There  is  no  tell 
ing  how  long  we  might  have  lived  in  the 
Swift  One's  tree-shelter.  But  one  day,  while 
we  were  away,  the  tree  was  struck  by  light 
ning.  Great  limbs  were  riven,  and  the  nest 
was  demolished.  I  started  to  rebuild,  but 
the  Swift  One  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  As  I  was  to  learn,  she  Was  greatly 
afraid  of  lightning,  and  I  could  not  persuade 
her  back  into  the  tree.  So  it  came  about,  our 
honeymoon  over,  that  we  went  to  the  caves  to 


BEFORE   ADAM  207 

live.  As  Lop-Ear  had  evicted  me  from  the 
cave  when  he  got  married,  I  now  evicted  him; 
and  the  Swift  One  and  I  settled  down  in  it, 
while  he  slept  at  night  in  the  connecting  passage 
of  the  double  cave. 

And  with  our  coming  to  live  with  the  horde 
came  trouble.  Red-Eye  had  had  I  don't  know 
how  many  wives  since  the  Singing  One.  She 
had  gone  the  way  of  the  rest.  At  present  he 
had  a  little,  soft,  spiritless  thing  that  whim 
pered  and  wept  all  the  time,  whether  he  beat  her 
or  not;  and  her  passing  was  a  question  of  very 
little  time.  Before  she  passed,  even,  Red-Eye 
set  his  eyes  on  the  Swift  One;  and  when  she 
passed,  the  persecution  of  the  Swift  One 
began. 

Well  for  her  that  she  was  the  Swift  One,  that 
she  had  that  amazing  aptitude  for  swift  flight 
through  the  trees.  She  needed  all  her  wisdom 
and  daring  in  order  to  keep  out  of  the  clutches 
of  Red-Eye.  I  could  not  help  her.  He  was 
so  powerful  a  monster  that  he  could  have  torn 
me  limb  from  limb.  As  it  was,  to  my  death  I 
carried  an  injured  shoulder  that  ached  and  went 


ao8  BEFORE   ADAM 

lame  in  rainy  weather  and  that  was  a  mark  of 
his  handiwork. 

The  Swift  One  was  sick  at  the  time  I  re 
ceived  this  injury.  It  must  have  been  a  touch 
of  the  malaria  from  which  we  sometimes  suf 
fered;  but  whatever  it  was,  it  made  her  dull 
and  heavy.  She  did  not  have  the  accustomed 
spring  to  her  muscles,  and  was  indeed  in  poor 
shape  for  flight  when  Red-Eye  cornered  her 
near  the  lair  of  the  wild  dogs,  several  miles 
south  from  the  caves.  Usually,  she  would  have 
circled  around  him,  beaten  him  in  the  straight 
away,  and  gained  the  protection  of  our  small- 
mouthed  cave.  But  she  could  not  circle  him. 
She  was  too  dull  and  slow.  Each  time  he 
headed  her  off,  until  she  gave  over  the  attempt 
and  devoted  her  energies  wholly  to  keeping  out 
of  his  clutches. 

Had  she  not  been  sick  it  would  have  been 
child's  play  for  her  to  elude  him;  but  as  it  was, 
it  required  all  her  caution  and  cunning.  It  was 
to  her  advantage  that  she  could  travel  on  thinner 
branches  than  he,  and  make  wider  leaps.  Also, 
she  was  an  unerring  judge  of  distance,  and  she 


BEFORE   ADAM  209 

had  an  instinct  for  knowing  the  strength  of 
twigs,  branches,  and  rotten  limbs. 

It  was  an  interminable  chase.  Round  and 
round  and  back  and  forth  for  long  stretches 
through  the  forest  they  dashed.  There  was 
great  excitement  among  the  other  Folk.  They 
set  up  a  wild  chattering,  that  was  loudest  when 
Red-Eye  was  at  a  distance,  and  that  hushed 
when  the  chase  led  him  near.  They  were 
impotent  onlookers.  The  females  screeched 
and  gibbered,  and  the  males  beat  their  chests 
in  helpless  rage.  Big  Face  was  especially 
angry,  and  though  he  hushed  his  racket 
when  Red-Eye  drew  near,  he  did  not  hush 
it  to  the  extent  the  others  did. 

As  for  me,  I  played  no  brave  part.  I  know 
I  was  anything  but  a  hero.  Besides,  of  what 
use  would  it  have  been  for  me  to  encounter 
Red-Eye  ?  He  was  the  mighty  monster,  the 
abysmal  brute,  and  there  was  no  hope  for 
me  in  a  conflict  of  strength.  He  would  have 
killed  me,  and  the  situation  would  have  re 
mained  unchanged.  He  would  have  caught 
the  Swift  One  before  she  could  have  gained  the 


210  BEFORE   ADAM 

cave.  As  it  was,  I  could  only  look  on  in  help 
less  fury,  and  dodge  out  of  the  way  and  cease 
my  raging  when  he  came  too  near. 

The  hours  passed.  It  was  late  afternoon. 
And  still  the  chase  went  on.  Red-Eye  was 
bent  upon  exhausting  the  Swift  One.  He 
deliberately  ran  her  down.  After  a  long  time 
she  began  to  tire  and  could  no  longer  maintain 
her  headlong  flight.  Then  it  was  that  she 
began  going  far  out  on  the  thinnest  branches, 
where  he  could  not  follow.  Thus  she  might 
have  got  a  breathing  spell,  but  Red-Eye  was 
fiendish.  Unable  to  follow  her,  he  dislodged 
her  by  shaking  her  off.  With  all  his  strength 
and  weight,  he  would  shake  the  branch  back 
and  forth  until  he  snapped  her  off  as  one  would 
snap  a  fly  from  a  whip-lash.  The  first  time^ 
she  saved  herself  by  falling  into  branches 
lower  down.  Another  time,  though  they  did 
not  save  her  from  the  ground,  they  broke  her 
fall.  Still  another  time,  so  fiercely  did  he  snap 
her  from  the  branch,  she  was  flung  clear  across 
a  gap  into  another  tree.  It  was  remarkable, 
the  way  she  gripped  and  saved  herself.  Only 


BEFORE   ADAM  211 

when  driven  to  it  did  she  seek  the  temporary 
safety  of  the  thin  branches.  But  she  was  so 
tired  that  she  could  not  otherwise  avoid  him, 
and  time  after  time  she  was  compelled  to  take 

-to    the  thin  branches. 
Still       the      chase 
went    on,    and    still 
the    Folk    screeched, 
beat    their 

chests, 
and  gnashed  their  teeth.     Then 

came   the    end.     It   was   almost 
twilight.       Trembling,    panting, 

struggling  for  breath,  the  Swift 

*  '  J  \tK  \ 
One  clung  pitiably  to  a  high  thin          f  {jjyj  « 

branch.  It  was  thirty  feet  to  the 
ground,  and  nothing  intervened.  Red- 
Eye  swung  back  and  forth  on  the 
branch  farther  down.  It  became  a  pendulum, 
swinging  wider  and  wider  with  every  lunge  of 
his  weight.  Then  he  reversed  suddenly,  just 
before  the  downward  swing  was  completed. 
Her  grips  were  torn  loose,  and,  screaming, 
she  was  hurled  toward  the  ground. 


212  BEFORE   ADAM 

But  she  righted  herself  in  mid-air  and 
descended  feet  first.  Ordinarily,  from  such  a 
height,  the  spring  in  her  legs  would  have  eased 
the  shock  of  impact  with  the  ground.  But  she 
was  exhausted.  She  could  not  exercise  this 
spring.  Her  legs  gave  under  her,  having  only 
partly  met  the  shock,  and  she  crashed  on  over 
on  her  side.  This,  as  it  turned  out,  did  not 
injure  her,  but  it  did  knock  the  breath  from  her 
lungs.  She  lay  helpless  and  struggling  for  air. 

Red-Eye  rushed  upon  her  and  seized  her. 
With  his  gnarly  fingers  twisted  into  the  hair 
of  her  head,  he  stood  up  and  roared  in  triumph 
and  defiance  at  the  awed  Folk  that  watched 
from  the  trees.  Then  it  was  that  I  went  mad. 
Caution  was  thrown  to  the  winds;  forgotten 
was  the  will  to  live  of  my  flesh.  Even  as  Red- 
Eye  roared,  from  behind  I  dashed  upon  him. 
So  unexpected  was  my  charge  that  I  knocked 
him  off  his  feet.  I  twined  my  arms  and  legs 
around  him  and  strove  to  hold  him  down. 
This  would  have  been  impossible  to  accomplish 
had  he  not  held  tightly  with  one  hand  to  the 
Swift  One's  hair. 


BEFORE   ADAM  213 

Encouraged  by  my  conduct,  Big-Face  became 
a  sudden  ally.  He  charged  in,  sank  his  teeth 
in  Red-Eye's  arm,  and  ripped  and  tore  at  his 
face.  This  was  the  time  for  the  rest  of  the  Folk 
to  have  joined  in.  It  was  the  chance  to  do 
for  Red-Eye  for  all  time.  But  they  remained 
afraid  in  the  trees. 

It  was  inevitable  that  Red-Eye  should  win  in 
the  struggle  against  the  two  of  us.  The  reason 
he  did  not  finish  us  off  immediately  was  that  the 
Swift  One  clogged  his  movements.  She  had 
regained  her  breath  and  was  beginning  to  re 
sist.  He  would  not  release  his  clutch  on  her 
hair,  and  this  handicapped  him.  He  got  a 
grip  on  my  arm.  It  was  the  beginning  of  the 
end  for  me.  He  began  to  draw  me  toward  him 
into  a  position  where  he  could  sink  his  teeth 
into  my  throat.  His  mouth  was  open,  and  he 
was  grinning.  And  yet,  though  he  had  just 
begun  to  exert  his  strength,  in  that  moment 
he  wrenched  my  shoulder  so  that  I  suffered 
from  it  for  the  remainder  of  my  life. 

And  in  that  moment  something  happened. 
There  was  no  warning.  A  great  body  smashed 


214  BEFORE   ADAM 

down  upon  the  four  of  us  locked  together.  We 
were  driven  violently  apart  and  rolled  over  and 
over,  and  in  the  suddenness  of  surprise  we 
released  our  holds  on  one  another.  At  the 
moment  of  the  shock,  Big-Face  screamed  ter 
ribly.  I  did  not  know  what  had  happened, 
though  I  smelled  tiger  and  caught  a  glimpse  of 
striped  fur  as  I  sprang  for  a  tree. 

It  was  old  Saber-Tooth.  Aroused  in  his  lair 
by  the  noise  we  had  made,  he  had  crept  upon 
us  unnoticed.  The  Swift  One  gained  the  next 
tree  to  mine,  and  I  immediately  joined  her. 
I  put  my  arms  around  her  and  held  her  close 
to  me  while  she  whimpered  and  cried  softly. 
From  the  ground  came  a  snarling,  and  crunch 
ing  of  bones.  It  was  Saber-Tooth  making  his 
supper  off  of  what  had  been  Big-Face.  From 
beyond,  with  inflamed  rims  and  eyes,  Red- 
Eye  peered  down.  Here  was  a  monster  mightier 
than  he.  The  Swift  One  and  I  turned  and 
went  away  quietly  through  the  trees  toward 
the  cave,  while  the  Folk  gathered  overhead 
and  showered  down  abuse  and  twigs  and 
branches  upon  their  ancient  enemy.  He  lashed 
his  tail  and  snarled,  but  went  on  eating. 


BEFORE   ADAM  215 

And  in  such  fashion  were  we  saved.  It  was 
a  mere  accident  —  the  sheerest  accident.  Else 
would  I  have  died,  there  in  Red-Eye's  clutch, 
and  there  would  have  been  no  bridging  of  time 
to  the  tune  of  a  thousand  centuries  down  to  a 
progeny  that  reads  newspapers  and  rides  on 
electric  cars  —  ay,  and  that  writes  narratives 
of  bygone  happenings  even  as  this  is  written. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

IT  was  in  the  early  fall  of  the  following 
year  that  it  happened.  After  his  failure 
to  get  the  Swift  One,  Red-Eye  had  taken 
another  wife;  and,  strange  to  relate,  she  was 
still  alive.  Stranger  still,  they  had  a  baby 
several  months  old  —  Red-Eye's  first  child. 
His  previous  wives  had  never  lived  long  enough 
to  bear  him  children.  The  year  had  gone  well 
for  all  of  us.  The  weather  had  been  excep 
tionally  mild  and  food  plentiful.  I  remember 
especially  the  turnips  of  that  year.  The  nut 
crop  was  also  very  heavy,  and  the  wild  plums 
were  larger  and  sweeter  than  usual. 

In  short,  it  was  a  golden  year.  And  then  it 
happened.  It  was  in  the  early  morning,  and 
we  were  surprised  in  our  caves.  In  the  chill 
gray  light  we  awoke  from  sleep,  most  of  us, 
to  encounter  death.  The  Swift  One  and  I 
were  aroused  by  a  pandemonium  of  screeching 

216 


BEFORE   ADAM 


217 


and  gibbering.  Our  cave  was  the  highest  of 
all  on  the  cliff,  and  we  crept  to  the  mouth  and 
peered  down.  The  open  space  was  filled  with 
the  Fire  People.  Their  cries  and  yells  were 
added  to  the  clamor,  but  they  had  order  and 
plan,  while  we  Folk  had  none.  Each  one  of 
us  fought  and  acted  for  himself,  and  no  one 
of  us  knew  the  extent  of  the  calamity  that  was 
befalling  us. 

By  the  time  we  got  to  stone-throwing,  the 
Fire  People  had   massed   thick  at  the 
base  of  the   cliff.     Our  first 
volley   must    have   mashed 
some  heads,  for  when 
they     swerved      back 
from  the  cliff  three  of 
their  number  were  left 
upon  the  ground.     These 
were  struggling  and  floun 
dering,  and  one  was  trying 
to   crawl   away.      But  we 
fixed  them.     By  this  time 
we  males  were  roaring  with 
rage,    and   we   rained    rocks 


2i8  BEFORE   ADAM 

upon  the  three  men  that  were  down.  Several 
of  the  Fire-Men  returned  to  drag  them  into 
safety,  but  our  rocks  drove  the  rescuers  back. 

The  Fire  People  became  enraged.  Also,  they 
became  cautious.  In  spite  of  their  angry  yells, 
they  kept  at  a  distance  and  sent  flights  of 
arrows  against  us.  This  put  an  end  to  the 
rock-throwing.  By  the  time  half  a  dozen  of 
us  had  been  killed  and  a  score  injured,  the 
rest  of  us  retreated  inside  our  caves.  I  was 
not  out  of  range  in  my  lofty  cave,  but  the  dis 
tance  was  great  enough  to  spoil  effective  shoot 
ing,  and  the  Fire  People  did  not  waste  many 
arrows  on  me.  Furthermore,  I  was  curious. 
I  wanted  to  see.  While  the  Swift  One  remained 
well  inside  the  cave,  trembling  with  fear  and 
making  low  wailing  sounds  because  I  would 
not  come  in,  I  crouched  at  the  entrance  and 
watched. 

The  righting  had  now  become  intermittent. 
It  was  a  sort  of  deadlock.  We  were  in  the 
caves,  and  the  question  with  the  Fire  People 
was  how  to  get  us  out.  They  did  not  dare 
come  in  after  us,  and  in  general  we  would  not 


BEFORE   ADAM  219 

expose  ourselves  to  their  arrows.  Occasionally, 
when  one  of  them  drew  in  close  to  the  base  of 
the  cliff,  one  or  another  of  the  Folk  would  smash 
a  rock  down.  In  return,  he  would  be  trans 
fixed  by  half  a  dozen  arrows.  This  ruse  worked 
well  for  some  time,  but  finally  the  Folk  no 
longer  were  inveigled  into  showing  themselves. 
The  deadlock  was  complete. 

Behind  the  Fire  People  I  could  see  the  little 
wizened  old  hunter  directing  it  all.  They 
obeyed  him,  and  went  here  and  there  at  his 
commands.  Some  of  them  went  into  the 
forest  and  returned  with  loads  of  dry  wood, 
leaves,  and  grass.  All  the  Fire  People  drew 
in  closer.  While  most  of  them  stood  by  with 
bows  and  arrows,  ready  to  shoot  any  of  the  Folk 
that  exposed  themselves,  several  of  the  Fire- 
Men  heaped  the  dry  grass  and  wood  at  the 
mouths  of  the  lower  tier  of  caves.  Out  of 
these  heaps  they  conjured  the  monster  we 
feared  —  FIRE.  At  first,  wisps  of  smoke 
arose  and  curled  up  the  cliff.  Then  I  could 
see  the  red-tongued  flames  darting  in  and  out 
through  the  wood  like  tiny  snakes.  The 


220  BEFORE   ADAM 

smoke  grew  thicker  and  thicker,  at  times 
shrouding  the  whole  face  of  the  cliff.  But  I 
was  high  up  and  it  did  not  bother  me  much, 
though  it  stung  my  eyes  and  I  rubbed  them 
with  my  knuckles. 

Old  Marrow-Bone  was  the  first  to  be  smoked 
out.  A  light  fan  of  air  drifted  the  smoke  away 
at  the  time  so  that  I  saw  clearly.  He  broke 
out  through  the  smoke,  stepping  on  a  burning 
coal  and  screaming  with  the  sudden  hurt  of 
it,  and  essayed  to  climb  up  the  cliff.  The  arrows 
showered  about  him.  He  came  to  a  pause  on 
a  ledge,  clutching  a  knob  of  rock  for  support, 
gasping  and  sneezing  and  shaking  his  head. 
He  swayed  back  and  forth.  The  feathered 
ends  of  a  dozen  arrows  were  sticking  out  of 
him.  He  was  an  old  man,  and  he  did  not  want 
to  die.  He  swayed  wider  and  wider,  his  knees 
giving  under  him,  and  as  he  swayed  he  wailed 
most  plaintively.  His  hand  released  its  grip  and 
he  lurched  outward  to  the  fall.  His  old  bones 
must  have  been  sadly  broken.  He  groaned  and 
strove  feebly  to  rise,  but  a  Fire-Man  rushed 
in  upon  him  and  brained  him  with  a  club. 


BEFORE   ADAM  221 

And  as  it  happened  with  Marrow-Bone,  so 
it  happened  with  many  of  the  Folk.  Unable 
to  endure  the  smoke-suffocation,  they  rushed 
out  to  fall  beneath  the  arrows.  Some  of  the 
women  and  children  remained  in  the  caves  to 
strangle  to  death,  but  the  majority  met  death 
outside. 

When  the  Fire-Men  had  in  this  fashion  cleared 
the  first  tier  of  caves,  they  began  making 
arrangements  to  duplicate  the  operation  on  the 
second  tier  of  caves.  It  was  while  they  were 
climbing  up  with  their  grass  and  wood,  that  Red- 
Eye,  followed  by  his  wife,  with  the  baby  holding 
to  her  tightly,  made  a  successful  flight  up  the 
cliff.  The  Fire-Men  must  have  concluded  that 
in  the  interval  between  the  smoking-out  opera 
tions  we  would  remain  in  our  caves;  so  that 
they  were  unprepared,  and  their  arrows  did 
not  begin  to  fly  till  Red-Eye  and  his  wife  were 
well  up  the  wall.  When  he  reached  the  top, 
he  turned  about  and  glared  down  at  them, 
roaring  and  beating  his  chest.  They  arched 
their  arrows  at  him,  and  though  he  was  un 
touched  he  fled  on. 


222  BEFORE   ADAM 

I  watched  a  third  tier  smoked  out,  and  a 
fourth.  A  few  of  the  Folk  escaped  up  the 
cliff,  but  most  of  them  were  shot  off  the  face  of 
it  as  they  strove  to  climb.  I  remember  Long- 
Lip.  He  got  as  far  as  my  ledge,  crying  pite- 
ously,  an  arrow  clear  through  his  chest,  the 
feathered  shaft  sticking  out  behind,  the  bone 
head  sticking  out  before,  shot  through  the  back 
as  he  clirnbed.  He  sank  down  on  my  ledge 
bleeding  profusely  at  the  mouth. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  upper  tiers 
seemed  to  empty  themselves  spontaneously. 
Nearly  all  the  Folk  not  yet  smoked  out  stam 
peded  up  the  cliff  at  the  same  time.  This 
was  the  saving  of  many.  The  Fire  People 
could  not  shoot  arrows-  fast  enough.  They 
filled  the  air  with  arrows,  and  scores  of  the 
stricken  Folk  came  tumbling  down;  but  still 
there  were  a  few  who  reached  the  top  and  got 
away. 

The  impulse  of  flight  was  now  stronger  in 
me  than  curiosity.  The  arrows  had  ceased 
flying.  The  last  of  the  Folk  seemed  gone, 
though  there  may  have  been  a  few  still  hiding 


BEFORE   ADAM 


223 


in  the  upper   caves. 
The   Swift   One    and 
I  started  to    make  a 
1     scramble  for  the  cliff- 
top.      At  sight   of  us  a 
great  cry  went  up  from 
the  Fire  People.      This  was 
not    caused    by   me,   but   by    the 
/  Swift   One.      They    were   chattering 
excitedly   and    pointing    her    out    to 
one  another.      They   did   not  try  to 
;  shoot  her.      Not  an  arrow  was  dis 
charged.      They   began  calling  softly 
and  coaxingly.      I  stopped  and  looked 
down.      She  was  afraid,  and  whimpered 
and  urged  me  on.      So  we  went  up  over 
the  top  and  plunged  into  the  trees. 

This  event  has  often  caused  me  to  wonder 
and  speculate.  If  she  were  really  of  their 
kind,  she  must  have  been  lost  from  them  at  a 
time  when  she  was  too  young  to  remember,  else 
would  she  not  have  been  afraid  of  them.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  may  well  have  been  that 
while  she  was  their  kind  she  had  never  been 


224  BEFORE    ADAM 

lost  from  them;  that  she  had  been  born  in  the 
wild  forest  far  from  their  haunts,  her  father 
maybe  a  renegade  Fire-Man,  her  mother  maybe 
one  of  my  own  kind,  one  of  the  Folk.  But  who 
shall  say  ?  These  things  are  beyond  me,  and 
the  Swift  One  knew  no  more  about  them  than 
did  I. 

We  lived  through  a  day  of  terror.  Most  of 
the  survivors  fled  toward  the  blueberry  swamp 
and  took  refuge  in  the  forest  in  that  neighbor 
hood.  And  all  day  hunting  parties  of  the  Fire 
People  ranged  the  forest,  killing  us  wherever 
they  found  us.  It  must  have  been  a  deliberately 
executed  plan.  Increasing  beyond  the  limits 
of  their  own  territory,  they  had  decided  on 
making  a  conquest  of  ours.  Sorry  the  con 
quest  !  We  had  no  chance  against  them.  It 
was  slaughter,  indiscriminate  slaughter,  for  they 
spared  none,  killing  old  and  young,  effectively 
ridding  the  land  of  our  presence. 

It  was  like  the  end  of  the  world  to  us.  We 
fled  to  the  trees  as  a  last  refuge,  only  to  be 
surrounded  and  killed,  family  by  family.  We 
saw  much  of  this  during  that  day,  and  besides, 


BEFORE   ADAM  225 

I  wanted  to  see.  The  Swift  One  and  I  never 
remained  long  in  one  tree,  and  so  escaped  being 
surrounded.  But  there  seemed  no  place  to  go. 
The  Fire-Men  were  everywhere,  bent  on  their 
task  of  extermination.  Every  way  we  turned 
we  encountered  them,  and  because  of  this  we 
saw  much  of  their  handiwork. 

I  did  not  see  what  became  of  my  mother,  but 
I  did  see  the  Chatterer  shot  down  out  of  the 
old  home-tree.  And  I  am  afraid  that  at  the 
sight  I  did  a  bit  of  joyous  teetering.  Before  I 
leave  this  portion  of  my  narrative,  I  must  tell 
of  Red-Eye.  He  was  caught  with  his  wife  in 
a  tree  down  by  the  blueberry  swamp.  The 
Swift  One  and  I  stopped  long  enough  in  our 
flight  to  see.  The  Fire-Men  were  too  intent 
upon  their  work  to  notice  us,  and,  furthermore, 
we  were  well  screened  by  the  thicket  in  which 
we  crouched. 

Fully  a  score  of  the  hunters  were  under  the 
tree,  discharging  arrows  into  it.  They  always 
picked  up  their  arrows  when  they  fell  back  to 
earth.  I  could  not  see  Red-Eye,  but  I  could 
hear  him  howling  from  somewhere  in  the  tree. 


226  BEFORE   ADAM 

After  a  short  interval  his  howling  grew  muffled. 
He  must  have  crawled  into  a  hollow  in  the 
trunk.  But  his  wife  did  not  win  this  shelter. 
An  arrow  brought  her  to  the  ground.  She  was 
severely  hurt,  for  she  made  no  effort  to  get 
away.  She  crouched  in  a  sheltering  way  over 
her  baby  (which  clung  tightly  to  her),  and 
made  pleading  signs  and  sounds  to  the  Fire- 
Men.  They  gathered  about  her  and  laughed 
at  her  —  even  as  Lop-Ear  and  I  had  laughed 
at  the  old  Tree-Man.  And  even  as  we  had 
poked  him  with  twigs  and  sticks,  so  did  the 
Fire-Men  with  Red-Eye's  wife.  They  poked 
her  with  the  ends  of  their  bows,  and  prodded 
her  in  the  ribs.  But  she  was  poor  fun.  She 
would  not  fight.  Nor,  for  that  matter,  would 
she  get  angry.  She  continued  to  crouch  over 
her  baby  and  to  plead.  One  of  the  Fire-Men 
stepped  close  to  her.  In  his  hand  was  a  club. 
She  saw  and  understood,  but  she  made  only 
the  pleading  sounds  until  the  blow  fell. 

Red-Eye,  in  the  hollow  of  the  trunk,  was  safe 
from  their  arrows.  They  stood  together  and 
debated  for  a  while,  then  one  of  them  climbed 


BEFORE   ADAM  227 

into    the    tree.     What    happened    up    there    I 

could  not  tell,  but  I  heard  him  yell  and  saw  the 

excitement    of  those    that    remained    beneath. 

After    several    minutes    his 

body    crashed    down    to 

the  ground.    He  did  not 

move.     They  looked  at  him 

and  raised  his  head,  but  it  fell 

back  limply  when  they  let  go. 

Red-Eye    had     accounted    for 

himself. 

They  were  very  angry.  There 
was  an  opening  into  the 
trunk  close  to  the  ground. 
They  gathered  wood  and  grass 
and  built  a  fire.  The  Swift 
One  and  I,  our  arms  around 
each  other,  waited  and  watched  in  the 
thicket.  Sometimes  they  threw  upon  the  fire 
green  branches  with  many  leaves,  whereupon 
the  smoke  became  very  thick. 

We  saw  them  suddenly  swerve  back  from  the 
tree.  They  were  not  quick  enough.  Red- 
Eye's  flying  body  landed  in  the  midst  of  them. 


228  BEFORE   ADAM 

He  was  in  a  frightful  rage,  smashing  about 
with  his  long  arms  right  and  left.  He  pulled 
the  face  off  one  of  them,  literally  pulled  it  off 
with  those  gnarly  fingers  of  his  and  those  tre 
mendous  muscles.  He  bit  another  through  the 
neck.  The  Fire-Men  fell  back  with  wild  fierce 
yells,  then  rushed  upon  him.  He  managed  to 
get  hold  of  a  club  and  began  crushing  heads 
like  eggshells.  He  was  too  much  for  them, 
and  they  were  compelled  to  fall  back  again. 
This  was  his  chance,  and  he  turned  his  back 
upon  them  and  ran  for  it,  still  howling  wrath- 
fully.  A  few  arrows  sped  after  him,  but  he 
plunged  into  a  thicket  and  was  gone. 

The  Swift  One  and  I  crept  quietly  away, 
only  to  run  foul  of  another  party  of  Fire-Men. 
They  chased  us  into  the  blueberry  swamp,  but 
we  knew  the  tree-paths  across  the  farther 
morasses  where  they  could  not  follow  on  the 
ground,  and  so  we  escaped.  We  came  out  on 
the  other  side  into  a  narrow  strip  of  forest  that 
separated  the  blueberry  swamp  from  the  great 
swamp  that  extended  westward.  Here  we  met 
Lop-Ear.  How  he  had  escaped  I  cannot 


BEFORE   ADAM  229 

imagine,  unless  he  had  not  slept  the  preceding 
night  at  the  caves. 

Here,  in  the  strip  of  forest,  we  might  have 
built  tree-shelters  and  settled  down;  but  the 
Fire  People  were  performing  their  work  of 
extermination  thoroughly.  In  the  afternoon, 
Hair-Face  and  his  wife  fled  out  from  among 
the  trees  to  the  east,  passed  us,  and  were  gone. 
They  fled  silently  and  swiftly,  with  alarm  in 
their  faces.  In  the  direction  from  which  they 
had  come  we  heard  the  cries  and  yells  of  the 
hunters,  and  the  screeching  of  some  one  of 
the  Folk.  The  Fire  People  had  found  their 
way  across  the  swamp. 

The  Swift  One,  Lop-Ear,  and  I  followed  on 
the  heels  of  Hair-Face  and  his  wife.  When 
we  came  to  the  edge  of  the  great  swamp,  we 
stopped.  We  did  not  know  its  paths.  It  was 
outside  our  territory,  and  it  had  been  always 
avoided  by  the  Folk.  None  had  ever  gone  into 
it  —  at  least,  to  return.  In  our  minds  it 
represented  mystery  and  fear,  the  terrible 
unknown.  As  I  say,  we  stopped  at  the  edge 
of  it.  We  were  afraid.  The  cries  of  the 


230  BEFORE   ADAM 

Fire-Men  were  drawing  nearer.  We  looked 
at  one  another.  Hair-Face  ran  out  on  the 
quaking  morass  and  gained  the  firmer  footing 
of  a  grass-hummock  a  dozen  yards  away.  His 


wife  did  not  follow.  She  tried  to,  but  shrank 
back  from  the  treacherous  surface  and  cowered 
down. 

The  Swift  One  did  not  wait  for  me,  nor  did 
she  pause  till  she  had  passed  beyond  Hair- 
Face  a  hundred  yards  and  gained  a  much  larger 
hummock.  By  the  time  Lop-Ear  and  I  had 
caught  up  with  her,  the  Fire-Men  appeared 
among  the  trees.  Hair-Face's  wife,  driven  by 
them  into  panic  terror,  dashed  after  us.  But 
she  ran  blindly,  without  caution,  and  broke 


BEFORE  ADAM  231 

through  the  crust.  We  turned  and  watched, 
and  saw  them  shoot  her  with  arrows  as  she 
sank  down  in  the  mud.  The  arrows  began 
falling  about  us.  Hair-Face  had  now  joined 
us,  and  the  four  of  us  plunged  on,  we  knew  not 
whither,  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  swamp. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

OF  our  wanderings  in  the  great  swamp 
I  have  no  clear  knowledge.  When  I 
strive  to  remember,  I  have  a  riot  of 
unrelated  impressions  and  a  loss  of  time-value. 
I  have  no  idea  of  how  long  we  were  in  that  vast 
everglade,  but  it  must  have  been  for  weeks. 
My  memories  of  what  occurred  invariably  take 
the  form  of  nightmare.  For  untold  ages, 
oppressed  by  protean  fear,  I  am  aware  of  wan 
dering,  endlessly  wandering,  through  a  dank 
and  soggy  wilderness,  where  poisonous  snakes 
struck  at  us,  and  animals  roared  around  us, 
and  the  mud  quaked  under  us  and  sucked  at 
our  heels. 

I  know  that  we  were  turned  from  our  course 
countless  times  by  streams  and  lakes  and 
slimy  seas.  Then  there  were  storms  and  ris 
ings  of  the  water  over  great  areas  of  the  low- 
lying  lands;  and  there  were  periods  of  hunger 

232 


BEFORE   ADAM  235 

and  misery  when  we  were  kept  prisoners  in 
the  trees  for  days  and  days  by  these  transient 
floods. 

Very  strong  upon  me  is  one  picture.  Large 
trees  are  about  us,  and  from  their  branches 
hang  gray  filaments  of  moss,  while  great  creep 
ers,  like  monstrous  serpents,  curl  around  the 
trunks  and  writhe  in  tangles  through  the  air. 
And  all  about  is  the  mud,  soft  mud,  that  bub 
bles  forth  gases,  and  that  heaves  and  sighs 
with  internal  agitations.  And  in  the  midst  of 
all  this  are  a  dozen  of  us.  We  are  lean  and 
wretched,  and  our  bones  show  through  our 
tight-stretched  skins.  We  do  not  sing  and 
chatter  and  laugh.  We  play  no  pranks.  For 
once  our  volatile  and  exuberant  spirits  are 
hopelessly  subdued.  We  make  plaintive,  quer 
ulous  noises,  look  at  one  another,  and  cluster 
close  together.  It  is  like  the  meeting  of  the 
handful  of  survivors  after  the  day  of  the  end 
of  the  world. 

This  event  is  without  connection  with  the 
other  events  in  the  swamp.  How  we  ever 
managed  to  cross  it,  I  do  not  know,  but  at  last 


236  BEFORE   ADAM 

we  came  out  where  a  low  range  of  hills  ran 
down  to  the  bank  of  the  river.  It  was  our 
river  emerging  like  ourselves  from  the  great 
swamp.  On  the  south  bank,  where  the  river 
had  broken  its  way  through  the  hills,  we  found 
many  sand-stone  caves.  Beyond,  toward  the 
west,  the  ocean  boomed  on  the  bar  that  lay 
across  the  river's  mouth.  And  here,  in  the 
caves,  we  settled  down  in  our  abiding-place  by 
the  sea. 

There  were  not  many  of  us.  From  time  to 
time,  as  the  days  went  by,  more  of  the  Folk 
appeared.  They  dragged  themselves  from  the 
swamp  singly,  and  in  twos  and  threes,  more 
dead  than  alive,  mere  perambulating  skeletons, 
until  at  last  there  were  thirty  of  us.  Then  no 
more  came  from  the  swamp,  and  Red-Eye  was 
not  among  us.  It  was  noticeable  that  no 
children  had  survived  the  frightful  journey. 

I  shall  not  tell  in  detail  of  the  years  we  lived 
by  the  sea.  It  was  not  a  happy  abiding-place. 
The  air  was  raw  and  chill,  and  we  suffered 
continually  from  coughing  and  colds.  We  could 
not  survive  in  such  an  environment.  True, 


BEFORE   ADAM  237 

we  had  children;  but  they  had  little  hold  on 
life  and  died  early,  while  we  died  faster  than 
new  ones  were  born.  Our  number  steadily 
diminished. 

Then  the  radical  change  in  our  diet  was  not 
good  for  us.  We  got  few  vegetables  and  fruits, 
and  became  fish-eaters.  There  were  mussels 
and  abalones  and  clams  and  rock-oysters,  and 
great  ocean-crabs  that  were  thrown  upon  the 
beaches  in  stormy  weather.  Also,  we  found 
several  kinds  of  seaweed  that  were  good  to 
eat.  But  the  change  in  diet  caused 
us  stomach  troubles, 


and  none  of  us  ever 
waxed  fat.  We  were  all  lean  and  dyspeptic- 
looking.  It  was  in  getting  the  big  abalones  that 
Lop-Ear  was  lost.  One  of  them  closed  upon 
his  fingers  at  low-tide,  and  then  the  flood-tide 
came  in  and  drowned  him.  We  found  his 
body  the  next  day,  and  it  was  a  lesson  to  us, 


238  BEFORE   ADAM 

Not  another  one  of  us  was  ever  caught  in  the 
closing  shell  of  an  abalone. 

The  Swift  One  and  I  managed  to  bring  up 
one  child,  a  boy  —  at  least  we  managed  to 
bring  him  along  for  several  years.  But  I  am 
quite  confident  he  could  never  have  survived 
that  terrible  climate.  And  then,  one  day,  the 
Fire  People  appeared  again.  They  had  come 
down  the  river,  not  on  a  catamaran,  but  in  a 
rude  dug-out.  There  were  three  of  them  that 
paddled  in  it,  and  one  of  them  was  the  little 
wizened  old  hunter.  They  landed  on  our 
beach,  and  he  limped  across  the  sand  and 
examined  our  caves. 

They  went  away  in  a  few  minutes,  but  the 
Swift  One  was  badly  scared.  We  were  all 
frightened,  but  none  of  us  to  the  extent  that 
she  was.  She  whimpered  and  cried  and  was 
restless  all  that  night.  In  the  morning  she  took 
the  child  in  her  arms,  and  by  sharp  cries,  ges 
tures,  and  example,  started  me  on  our  second 
long  flight.  There  were  eight  of  the  Folk  (all 
that  was  left  of  the  horde)  that  remained  behind 
in  the  caves.  There  was  no  hope  for  them. 


BEFORE   ADAM  239 

Without  doubt,  even  if  the  Fire  People  did  not 
return,  they  must  soon  have  perished.  It  was 
a  bad  climate  down  there  by  the  sea.  The 
Folk  were  not  constituted  for  the  coast-dwelling 
life. 

We  travelled  south,  for  days  skirting  the  great 
swamp  but  never  venturing  into  it.  Once  we 
broke  back  to  the  westward,  crossing  a  range  of 
mountains  and  coming  down  to  the  coast.  But 
it  was  no  place  for  us.  There  were  no  trees  — 
only  bleak  headlands,  a  thundering  surf,  and 
strong  winds  that  seemed  never  to  cease  from 
blowing.  We  turned  back  across  the  moun 
tains,  travelling  east  and  south,  until  we  came 
in  touch  with  the  great  swamp  again. 

Soon  we  gained  the  southern  extremity  of 
the  swamp,  and  we  continued  our  course  south 
and  east.  It  was  a  pleasant  land.  The  air 
was  warm,  and  we  were  again  in  the  forest. 
Later  on  we  crossed  a  low-lying  range  of  hills 
and  found  ourselves  in  an  even  better  forest 
country.  The  farther  we  penetrated  from  the 
coast  the  warmer  we  found  it,  and  we  went  on 
and  on  until  we  came  to  a  large  river  that  seemed 


240 


BEFORE   ADAM 


familiar  to  the  Swift  One.     It  was  where  she 

must  have  come  during  the  four  years'  absence 

from  the  horde.     This  river  we  crossed  on  logs, 

landing   on 

side  at  the 

large  bluff. 

up    on   the 

we      found 

new    home 

most    diffi- 

and  quite  hid- 

any      eye      be-     ,, 

There  is  little 
tale  to  tell, 
the  Swift  One 
lived  and  reared  our 
And  here  my  memo- 
never  made  another 
never  dream  beyond  our 
sible  cave.  And  here 
born  the  child  that  inherited  the  stuff  of  my 
dreams,  that  had  moulded  into  its  being  all 
the  impressions  of  my  life  —  or  of  the  life  of 
Big-Tooth,  rather,  who  is  my  other-self,  and  not 


more  of  my 
•^    Here 
and  I 
family, 
nd.     We 
migration.      I 
high,   inacces- 
must  have  been 


BEFORE   ADAM  241 

my  real  self,  but  who  is  so  real  to  me  that  often 
I  am  unable  to  tell  what  age  I  am  living  in. 

I  often  wonder  about  this  line  of  descent.  I, 
the  modern,  am  incontestably  a  man;  yet  I, 
Big-Tooth,  the  primitive,  am  not  a  man. 
Somewhere,  and  by  straight  line  of  descent, 
these  two  parties  to  my  dual  personality  were 
connected.  Were  the  Folk,  before  their  destruc 
tion,  in  the  process  of  becoming  men  ?  And 
did  I  and  mine  carry  through  this  process  ? 
On  the  other  hand,  may  not  some  descendant  of 
mine  have  gone  in  to  the  Fire  People  and  become 
one  of  them  ?  I  do  not  know.  There  is  no 
way  of  learning.  One  thing  only  is  certain, 
and  that  is  that  Big-Tooth  did  stamp  into  the 
cerebral  constitution  of  one  of  his  progeny  all 
the  impressions  of  his  life,  and  stamped  them 
in  so  indelibly  that  the  hosts  of  intervening 
generations  have  failed  to  obliterate  them. 

There  is  one  other  thing  of  which  I  must 
speak  before  I  close.  It  is  a  dream  that  I 
dream  often,  and  in  point  of  time  the  real 
event  must  have  occurred  during  the  period 
of  my  living  in  the  high,  inaccessible  cave. 


242  BEFORE   ADAM 

I  remember  that  I  wandered  far  in  the  forest 
toward  the  east.  There  I  came  upon  a  tribe 
of  Tree  People.  I  crouched  in  a  thicket  and 
watched  them  at  play.  They  were  holding  a 
laughing  council,  jumping  up  and  down  and 
screeching  rude  choruses. 

Suddenly  they  hushed  their  noise  and  ceased 
their  capering.  They  shrank  down  in  fear, 
and  quested  anxiously  about  with  their  eyes 
for  a  way  of  retreat.  Then  Red-Eye  walked 
in  among  them.  They  cowered  away  from 
him.  All  were  frightened.  But  he  made  no 
attempt  to  hurt  them.  He  was  one  of  them. 
At  his  heels,  on  stringy  bended  legs,  supporting 
herself  with  knuckles  to  the  ground  on  either 
side,  walked  an  old  female  of  the  Tree  People, 
his  latest  wife.  He  sat  down  in  the  midst  of 
the  circle.  I  can  see  him  now,  as  I  write  this, 
scowling,  his  eyes  inflamed,  as  he  peers  about 
him  at  the  circle  of  the  Tree  People.  And  as 
he  peers  he  crooks  one  monstrous  leg  and  with 
his  gnarly  toes  scratches  himself  on  the  stomach. 
He  is  Red-Eye,  the  atavism. 


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